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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086038">the wild and windy night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikk/pseuds/tikk'>tikk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Beatles (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(bulk of the fic is hurt!Paul), Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Paul McCartney, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Overdose, Platonic Relationship, Post-Break Up, Suicidal Thoughts, Yoko is not very nice in this, alternate title: "five times john and paul almost died...", alternate title: "hurt-hurt-hurt-hurt-hurt-hurt/comfort", but also she is not in it a lot, hurt john lennon, reconnection, rewriting the 70s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 02:35:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikk/pseuds/tikk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Beatles split, John and Paul's relationship deteriorates hard and fast. John grows more and more reckless, and Paul doesn't know how to reach him.  Until suddenly Paul is broken apart, just as John starts to pull himself together.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Paul doesn’t reply, but after a second he looks up into John’s eyes, and  then he doesn’t need words, because John knows. He knows what it means  and how it feels. Like he’s cut in half, poisoned right through. He  knows all the things Paul could never actually say. terrified. furious. broken. dead. And John doesn’t try to pretend any of it’s not real, or  that anything's okay. He looks terrified right back at him, like this is  something they never knew was coming and he has no more idea how to  cope with it than Paul does, like it's as much his world ending as it is  Paul's. It’s hours of conversation that Paul could never manage, all  the feelings he could never begin to explain, and it's done in two  seconds, and Paul loves him and hates him and doesn't have the energy  for either. </em>
  </p>
</blockquote>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Lennon &amp; Paul McCartney, John Lennon/Paul McCartney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>264</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>June 1971</b>
</p><p>John doesn't think about Paul that much really. But he's in the studio finishing off <em>How Do You Sleep</em>, and as they play it, he jokes, getting nastier than he means to because he knows everyone digs it. They love hearing him dishing on Paul, and he plays up to that. Happy to, because Paul's a prick, a goody two shoes butter wouldn't melt fucking prick. And because he knows Paul's been doing the same.</p><p>John doesn’t think about Paul that much, but sometimes he imagines him in the Ram sessions, all his snide comments sliding into the music. John imagines him laughing about them with his new band. With Linda. And so he’s written this, and he doesn’t care what Paul thinks, it’s a good track. Yoko loves it and that's all John needs to know. Paul will probably reply on his next album, something worse than Ram. John doesn't care. He wants to know what he'll do, how far he’ll go.</p><p>When they're finished it sounds great, the whole album does.</p><p>They head home and he's on top of the world. He kisses Yoko and pours a drink, and takes a couple of pills to relax and chill right down. He's got everything he needs here. Good music, good woman. This is the good life. John takes a couple more pills. For some reason he just can’t feel it; he feels tight and wound when he wants to relax and switch off. He takes a little something different, and has a drink.</p><p>He imagines Paul hearing it for the first time.</p><p>He puts on a record and starts to dance. He's good and life is good. When he finishes the bottle he starts another. And when Yoko goes to bed he sits by the window and he thinks about falling. He feels like he fell already, but nobody noticed.</p><p>He takes a pill. And then he washes it down with something else.</p><p>The news doesn't sugar coat it the way they would have done even a few years ago, <em>"rushed to hospital after a suspected overdose."</em></p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul stares at the radio.</p><p>"<em>The former Beatle was released this morning, just twenty four hours after he was admitted with a suspected overdose. He has since returned to his home at...</em>"</p><p>Overdose.</p><p>Paul picks up the phone. Puts it back down again. Picks it up and dials for an international line.</p><p>Accidental.</p><p>They didn't say it. But he's sure of it. Because John wouldn't...</p><p>The pain of losing Brian wraps around him like a strait jacket. He feels it like it was yesterday. He remembers the way John looked at him, and held him. Everything that passed between them unspoken, the pain and the weight of it, the fear and anger and helpless regret.</p><p>Paul knows John would never do that to him.</p><p>Even now.</p><p>He puts the phone back in its cradle.</p><p>He's still there, waiting by the phone, when Linda gets home. Sitting on his hands.</p><p>He doesn't call. Because John doesn't want to talk to him. Because it's not his place anymore. Because he's terrified.</p><p>Linda has heard about it on the radio - the whole world has heard. She asks him how John is, what's happening, did he speak with him, with Yoko? He shakes his head, and only shrugs when she asks him why not.</p><p>He goes to make tea. Linda lets it pass, but he sees her eyes on him, watching, and knowing more than he wants her to.</p><p>He wants John to call him and tell him it was a mistake. But John never calls him.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John and Yoko give an interview a few days later. John looks pale and drawn. They laugh and say it was just a little food poisoning - that they were celebrating the new album... they segue easily into discussing that instead. Paul watches them on the news, and feels nothing. A heavy kind of nothing that makes his throat ache.</p><p>"You should call him,” Linda says softly.</p><p>He hates it because he knows he should, but he knows he can't.</p><p>John probably wouldn’t even come to the phone. He hasn’t spoken to him for months now, not one word, not a breath. John doesn't shout and scream at him the way he did, he just hangs up when Paul calls... and Paul can't stand the idea of it, of calling and hearing that click. Not again. So he doesn't call.</p><p>And maybe it was food poisoning. God knows the press make things up.</p><p>Besides, Yoko is looking after him. John went to the hospital, and they put him back together. Paul wasn't there, and everything was fine. So maybe John's right. Maybe they don't need each other now.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>In the studio a couple of weeks later, <em>Dear Friend</em> pours out of him.</p><p>He wants it to say 'clean yourself up - take better care of yourself' but he leaves it at ‘throw the wine’.</p><p>He wants it to say ‘I don’t care about you any more than you care about me’ but ‘I’m in love with a friend of mine' somehow sits in its place, mocking him.</p><p>Weeks pass, and then, in September, <em>Imagine</em> comes out, and Paul hears <em>How Do You Sleep</em> for the first time.</p><p>He's known it was coming, people have been passing on rumours about it. Some gleefully, others more kindly. Richie had called to tell him about it, trying to talk it down, like it wasn't anything much.</p><p>Paul listens to it and he can’t believe the months he spent worrying that it was his fault, that the little digs he’d let slip into Ram might have upset John, might have been the reason John had... And all the time John had written this, had recorded it, put it out. And here was Paul worrying he might give a shit.</p><p>Paul listens to his newborn daughter crying, and he just feels tired.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>January 1972</b>
</p><p>Paul doesn’t want to go, but it’s been in place for months, set up back when he still liked the idea of travel and work. Now he doesn’t like the idea of anything very much. He likes sleep, he likes whisky. He likes pot.</p><p>Although not so much today. Today, flying into Japan, he doesn’t like pot very much at all.</p><p>He’s not stupid and he packed his own bag, but he’s thinking maybe he left a small bag in a pocket without thinking, so fucking stupid. But then he sees the bag they’re waving around, it’s a huge brick of the stuff, and he knows he didn’t miss that. Which means this is a set up. It's a point they’re making, about rock stars, and western rock stars, and beatles in particular.</p><p>They’re talking at him hurried and loud, they hurry him into a room, and hurry him out the other side before anyone comes with him, and suddenly he's in a car, and they're shouting. And he’s completely alone for the first time in a long time.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>The first reports make it sound like nothing much.</p><p>The next day there’s more confusion, nobody can find him, nobody’s sure where he’s being held, he’s somewhere in fucking Japan and none of the international press knows where exactly, or what's happening to him. John throws the radio at the wall and then goes to get the one out of the bedroom and tunes back in.</p><p>Three days, and nobody’s sure what’s happening, or where he is. Three days. John rings up radio stations both sides of the Atlantic, and rants at them about how fucking appalling it is, how the british embassy should get off their arse, and how he doesn’t really care about Paul but this is still disgraceful because he’s a Beatle, and he doesn’t really care about the Beatles, but all the same. Yoko unplugs the phone.</p><p>After a few days the Japanese relent and release footage of Paul being transferred to a jail in Tokyo. You can barely see his face, but it’s him, and John breathes.</p><p>But they don't get him back straight away. Another six days and John's chest is tight, his bones ache. He waits until Yoko is in the bath and he calls the British Embassy, he tells them they're cowards, fucking cowards, why don't they go in there and get him out? Fucking whole army sitting around playing with their cocks... and that's when they hang up on him, and Yoko's back before he can re-dial.</p><p>Eventually they release him with a big press event.</p><p>Paul’s polite, charming, he’s saying things they want him to say, how sorry he is, how well they looked after him, and it sounds natural because he’s good at that, and John half smiles seeing it in action again. And then he scowls because behind it Paul’s tired, his smile keeps slipping very slightly and when it does he doesn’t look angry, he looks frightened. And when one of the Japanese officers comes to stand next to him he shrinks away, very slightly, before stopping himself, smiling and shaking the man’s hand. John feels cold.</p><p>Yoko tells him it’s good that Paul is back, it’s over now and there was no need for the world to spend so much attention on Paul. John realises immediately that it was a setup. Done for publicity. After all, who even knew Paul was going to Japan before this, but now the tour is big news, everyone talking about it. Yoko smiles and says he never thinks clearly when it's about Paul, and she's right. She says they should think about other things, she has an art show she's working on and he hasn't been there for her. John's furious with himself, he's a fucking idiot.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul signs a napkin for the flight attendant and he knows that in years to come she’ll be told it’s a fake. His hand's shaking so much it looks like a poor copy even to him. The plane lands and Linda’s there, and he breathes deeply, the bruises over his chest making it tight. She doesn’t make him talk, just stays right by his side until they’re home and quiet.</p><p>George and Richie both call. They’ve been talking with Linda over the last weeks; Rich even came out to be with her for a few days. Everyone’s called. Not John.</p><p>He hears him on the radio a couple of days later, saying he wishes reporters would stop asking him about Paul, why is the whole world obsessed with Paul McCartney? If Paul’s stupid enough to take drugs into Japan, he has to deal with that himself, John would rather talk about real issues, things that matter. They ask him about the phone calls he made to radio stations that first day, and he says that they called him, asking for his opinion and he answered their questions. He makes it clear that he doesn’t want bad things for Paul, but only in the same way he doesn’t want bad things for anyone. He was only talking to people because they asked him to and then they try to blow it up into a story...</p><p>Linda describes the radio calls differently, she says John sounded worried. 'Beside himself' is the phrase she uses. But Paul knows she's telling him what she wants to believe, or what she thinks he needs to hear, and John doesn’t call.</p><p>His bruises hurt for weeks.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>July 1972</b>
</p><p>John gets into a fight. Starts a fight would be more accurate. He’s been drinking and he’s seventeen again, and he's angry, and he’s shouting, and eventually someone hits him. He laughs at them and asks if they can’t do better than that. The guy doesn't like being laughed at. His friends don’t like it either.</p><p>John feels his head smash against the wall and he's down. Boots hit his stomach, his back. He drags himself up, holding onto the bar. They look at him, willing to leave it at that. Loud and clear, he tells the guy that he hits like fucking poofter. Two seconds later a fist to his gut and before long he's back on the ground. Darkness settles over him like a warm blanket, and his mind is quiet, and he drifts.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>It's bad. Paul knows it is because George rings him to tell him, and he tries to be kind when he does it. George hasn't been kind to him for a while.</p><p>Paul hasn’t flown since Japan. Hasn’t been on his own since Japan. But Linda can’t leave the girls. He knows he could stay in Scotland and wait for news. He knows that John won't want him there. Nor will Yoko. He should stay and wait.</p><p>He lasts two hours.</p><p>He gets to America, and gets to the hospital. There's a swarm of press outside, and when they see him they bombard him with questions, yell at him for comments, and it’s all he can do not to make a scene, to yell back at them and scream for them to leave John the fuck alone just this once. But then he shakes his head and smiles despite himself, who's he to talk?</p><p>Yoko won’t let him see John but that’s fine, he didn’t think she would. It’s enough just to be there in case... just to be there.</p><p>He waits. The sister of the ICU takes pity on him, and shows him to a room where he can sit in peace, no reporters, no passers by. She promises they'll keep him updated. He sits, and he waits, and he does his best to be polite to the nurses who want him to sign things.</p><p>John is in surgery for hours the first day, and then there are complications overnight and they take him in again the second.</p><p>Paul wonders how they'll tell him, he plays it through in his mind. He imagines how they'll come in and they'll say it, and he'll say something back, and John will be dead.</p><p>Paul picks up a guitar - one of the nurses left it for him to sign - and he plays the first chords he ever learned. Three of them, round and round, a steady rhythm, a gentle sound. Only chords he knew back then, when his mum... Just a noise, on and on, round and round. Blood on the sheets. Guitar in his hands. Closes his eyes and he's got John there, sitting next to him, playing along.</p><p>On the fourth day John stabilises. He's unconscious, but breathing on his own. Paul sleeps for the first time.</p><p>John wakes up two days later, and Paul asks again. He already knows the answer full well, but he has to ask. He just wants to look at him, even if he's asleep, even if they can't talk. Yoko says no, she doesn't think it would be good for John, and Paul thinks that's probably true. Yoko says she's looking after him.</p><p>He flies back home.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John knows he was there because it’s in the papers.</p><p>Reporters ask him why he didn’t want to see Paul and the truth is he can’t remember anyone telling him he was there. But Yoko tells him she doesn’t think Paul wanted to see him, Paul barely even spoke to her the whole time he was here, he’s still ignoring her the way he always has. Like he can’t quite understand that John has his own life, and his own choices. Just like always.</p><p>John doesn't tell the reporters that, he just tells them that he doesn’t know why Paul came, John certainly didn’t ask him to or want him to, so he didn’t see him because he only wanted to be with Yoko, only ever wants to be with Yoko. Paul is not John’s problem and it's sad that he can't see that.</p><p>John's confused, and tired. His ribs hurt. He doesn't know why Paul would come all this way just to be like that. The nurses say he asked about him, that he was there every day. Yoko tells him not to worry about it, that's what Paul wants. She thinks it was for attention, tells him how Paul was signing things for the nurses, flirting with them, playing for them, and smiling at the press. He was just doing what he thought he should do, for appearances. Always so obsessed with appearances.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>August 1973</b>
</p><p>They're at a party, and some know nothing fucking kid is talking absolute bullshit. John has him up against the wall without even thinking.</p><p>"Say that again."</p><p>"I thought you knew, man. Shit. I thought you knew."</p><p>He twists out of John's grip, and backs away warily.</p><p>"It's all over the news. I figured someone would have told..."</p><p>John's head twists, vision blurs. He throws the kid away. He wants to scream but there's no noise inside him.</p><p>He needs him. That's all he can think. He can't be dead because John needs him.</p><p>He looks around and finds May, and tells her he needs to go. She starts to talk and he stares at her, he can't make out the words. He drags her towards the door, but when he gets there the steps up to it are wrong somehow, twisted and dark. He looks back to May for help, and there are bubbles coming out of her eyes, and floating away. He starts to laugh.</p><p>She's staring at him, and so he stares at her. He wonders if he loves her.</p><p>He tries to stop laughing and can't, which doesn't seem right.</p><p>He doesn't remember where they are, but he remembers that it doesn't matter, because nothing is real. Who said that? Somebody very witty. He won prizes, you know.</p><p>She wants him to go, tugs him towards the door, but something about going outside is beyond him. He pulls her back and laughs, they're right where they're supposed to be. The music's loud and terrible, the walls bend, and the floor dips beneath them. He pulls May close, he dances with her, he laughs and laughs until she is laughing too.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>"What is it, John, what did he say? What is it?"</p><p>On and on, she asks. But he is dancing. He's wonderful. When he spins he can feel the air around him changing colour.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>"John, are you okay? Let's go outside and get some air."</p><p>He is sitting on the floor and the floor is imaginary. He has made new friends and she is very jealous. He waves angrily at her, yells for her to leave him alone, and the people around him laugh, and their laughter wraps him up.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>"John, darling, it's time to go home, it's very late."</p><p>He doesn't know who she is. He doesn't know where Paul is. He hasn't seen him. He looks in the bathroom and the cloakroom. May says he might be at home, but John doesn't think so. Eventually she pulls John outside and into a car.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>"Don't cry, John, baby. It's okay. Don't cry. We'll be home soon."</p><p>He isn't crying. He's just tired. He's heavy.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up the apartment is littered with things he broke the night before.</p><p>May tells him about Paul; she's seen it on the tv this morning. He was taken to hospital in Lagos last night. They thought it was a heart attack, but this morning they're saying he was fine, and it wasn't serious.</p><p>He's okay. John knew that, he thinks.</p><p>She asks if he wants to call and make sure he's okay. Of course he doesn't. Why would he? They said he was fine, didn't they? She says it might make him feel better and that's bollocks because he doesn't feel anything. He can't help it, he finds himself getting confused - angry - that she even thought of it, she should know better. He needs somebody who knows better than that, better than him. He isn't connected to Paul any more, it would look strange for him to call. Even if he wanted to, she should know that it's stupid.</p><p>He stares at her and he wonders what they're doing here. What they are to each other. She knows so little about him. She's so young. He looks at the broken bookcase, and the bottles smashed on the floor. He wonders what she's doing here with him when she could be anywhere else.</p><p>That evening he calls Yoko. He leaves May in LA and goes back to New York.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>When Paul realises the press are reporting it as a heart attack, he calls his dad and brother to reassure them. Just a bronchial spasm, nothing really. The press are overreacting like always.</p><p>Richie calls and it's good to talk to him. Like the old days. The good ones.</p><p>Later he gets flowers from George.</p><p>He doesn't expect anything from John and he doesn't think about it too much. He's busy, finishing the record, dealing with the locals, looking forward to going home to the quiet of Scotland.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>January 1974</b>
</p><p>Paul is actually surprised by his reaction. Like he's been punched. A wave of shock right through him, no breath, his whole body reeling.</p><p>"John Lennon Dead For Thirty Seconds", the headline reads, and there are pictures, fucking pictures someone took while his best friend was lying, dead on the deck of a boat.</p><p>John drowned. Clowning around on someone's boat, drunk. He fell in and got tangled in some netting. He drowned. Paul's stomach turns over. They managed to pull him up again, and he wasn't breathing and some absolute fuck took photographs. Two seconds later someone gave a few chest compressions and John spluttered out water. A friend is quoted, saying it 'barely put a dent in the party'.</p><p>Paul turns the paper over so he can't see the photos. He sits down, head in his hands, and breathes steadily. For a second he thinks how strange it is for him to react like that - after all, it's been years now, four years, and John's... he's a long way away. He barely knows him now. He still thinks about him but not like he did, only occasionally. Only carefully.</p><p>Would it even matter if he was..? He can't finish that thought, he feels sick. He feels furious and small. Would John feel anything if it was the other way around? Probably not.</p><p>Paul gets a glass of water, swallows it all down. He drops the paper in the bin, and thinks about the day ahead.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>That afternoon he fishes the paper out of the bin, looks at who got the photo credit on the article. Some arsehole from a cheap american paper. Paul happens to know his boss's boss, so he makes a quick call to ensure that guy is not going to have a good day.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Two days later and the papers run a story saying John is suffering from pneumonia. He's staying at his apartment with Yoko, under the care of a 24 hour specialist.</p><p>Paul's busy, he's working on his album, his kids take up most of his time. He barely even glances over the story. He takes the kids to school, buys biscuits on his way home, he feeds Martha. A 24 hour specialist means it's serious. Some of Linda's friends come over for lunch, he pours drinks, he smiles, he loves this, good company, good conversation, relaxed and easy. He listens to the news while he's washing up, nothing about John. That evening he's working on new songs and he can't get them right, his fingers stumble. Suddenly he wants to smash his fucking guitar into the fucking ground. He puts it carefully back on its stand. He has a cup of tea.</p><p>He knows that John will laugh at him, probably fucking sell it to the press, look what that wimp McCartney sent me, look how desperate he is for my attention. But Paul can see him lying dead on a boat on the other side of the fucking world, and it's pretty much all he can see. So he finds a postcard and then takes twenty minutes trying to work out what he wants to say. What he's prepared to say. Eventually he scrawls 'I hope you're OK' and doesn't sign it. He gets the address from one of the bastard lawyer letters. He walks a mile to the nearest postbox and drops it in. Feels done.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>September 1974</b>
</p><p>Paul is fixing the barn roof. He slips, and barely has time to realise he's falling before he lands. The spike cuts straight through, piercing his palm. He knows that second that he's never going to play again.</p><p>After a couple of weeks the doctors confirm it. Likely total paralysis in his left hand. Fingers broken on the other which will never heal like they were before.</p><p>He can’t process it. He doesn’t know how to even start.</p><p>He slips into a depression as polite as he can manage, one where he doesn’t really talk or think. He can't do anything, so he doesn't. He starts drinking. Linda tries to talk to him. He hears her talking but he can't focus; he couldn't speak back to her any more than he could fly. He drinks and he smokes and he stares at the walls.</p><p>Linda packs the kids off to stay with family. Paul doesn't know what she wants him to say, when she tells him. They're better off away from him. He's tried to be normal with them, tried to smile. But he knows he's frightened them. They're better off away from him.</p><p>He drinks more now they're gone. And he sleeps more.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>And then he wakes up and John’s sitting on the side of his bed.</p><p>His hair’s dirty, down to his shoulders. He’s thin, and he’s jiggling one leg, making the whole bed shake.</p><p>Paul watches him for a minute. Then puts his hand on John’s thigh to make him stop moving. John looks at him, and says ‘hey’. Paul says ‘hey’ back, and that’s it, their big reunion after four years.</p><p>After a minute John puts his hand over the bandages on Paul’s hand, his fingers brushing gently over Paul’s wrist. "Linda told me."</p><p>Paul doesn’t reply, but after a second he looks up into John’s eyes, and then he doesn’t need words, because John knows. He knows what it means and how it feels. Like he’s cut in half, poisoned right through. He knows all the things Paul could never actually say. terrified. furious. broken. dead. And John doesn’t try to pretend any of it’s not real, or that anything's okay. He looks terrified right back at him, like this is something they never knew was coming and he has no more idea how to cope with it than Paul does, like it's as much his world ending as it is Paul's. It’s hours of conversation that Paul could never manage, all the feelings he could never begin to explain, and it's done in two seconds, and Paul loves him and hates him and doesn't have the energy for either.</p><p>He looks away again, takes his hand back.</p><p>He goes to the bathroom and when he comes back John's gone downstairs. He hears him talking with Linda, murmuring. Paul goes back to bed.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Linda packs a bag the next morning, and leaves. A friend has offered to take her and the girls to Spain for a week. Maybe two. Paul doesn't want her to go, but she kisses him and goes and actually all he feels is relieved not to have her look at him any more.</p><p>John is cooking breakfast. Beans on toast. The beans are burning and Paul thinks about saying something or moving them but he doesn't.</p><p>"Why are you here?"</p><p>John shrugs. He's buttering toast. "Didn't know where else to be."</p><p>Paul gets one of his brownies from the back of the fridge. He doesn't offer one to John, John can still fucking roll a joint so he doesn't get the baked version. He sits at the table and John brings him a cup of tea.</p><p>The beans are beyond rescue. John digs through the cupboards and finds jam. He spreads it for Paul without asking, and cuts his toast into triangles.</p><p>Paul wants to throw it at him but he eats it instead, the way his mum would have wanted him to. He picks each piece up carefully, trying not to show how hard it is. Two fingers on his right hand have enough movement that he can feed himself. He doesn't look at John to see if he's watching how slow it is. How pathetic.</p><p>Paul asks where Yoko is, and John just shakes his head. He drains his tea and then softly he says he thinks that's over, because they won’t let him back now, and he half laughs, looking at the floor.</p><p>Paul realises he doesn’t have a visa. The states won’t take him back. Realises when he says 'that's over' he's talking about America. His whole life there. And Paul stares at him, stunned.</p><p>John finishes his toast and starts washing up his plate.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John is waiting for Paul to hit him. He's been waiting for seventeen years one way or another, but he thinks he's closer than ever right now.</p><p>He wants weed. Well no, he wants heroin, but he can't think about that, so he's thinking about a joint. He can smell it all over the house, all over Paul, and he's imagining that first drag and how good it will feel, how easy... He goes into the kitchen in search of sugar.</p><p>He doesn't open the fridge. The pile of brownies are right there and if he opens the fridge he'll eat the entire plate. For now he looks through the cupboards. Starts opening drawers. There are no fucking biscuits in the fucking house. Bloody McCartneys probably bake their own, weed or not.</p><p>He eats jam with a spoon out of the jar, and wonders what the fuck he's doing here. He needs to call Linda and make her come back. What was she fucking thinking leaving him here? He can't remember where she wrote the number down. He drags fingers through his hair and wishes for the twenty millionth time that he was a better fucking person who knew what the fuck he was doing.</p><p>Martha brushes up against him, then sits and leans gently against his legs looking up at him. He kneels down and hugs her, burying his nose in her fur. She's happy to see him. He scratches her ears, and she looks at him, deep in his eyes. She remembers him, John can tell.</p><p>He stays there with her for a long time. Offers to share his jam, but she isn't interested. Listens to the wind and the rain.</p><p>He finds Paul back in bed. John pulls the covers away, and throws them on the floor. Paul's still dressed, so he drops his coat down next to him. "We're going out."</p><p>Paul looks at the window, or more exactly, at the rain pelting against the pane. "Sod off."</p><p>"Linda said I wasn't to leave you on your own, and I need to get out of here, Paul. Put your coat on."</p><p>Paul lies there.</p><p>John glares at him for a minute. Then he takes a deep breath, and goes over to the window, and glares at the rain instead. After a while he lowers himself to the floor to wait.</p><p>He sits cross legged, leaning against the wall under the window. Brief glimpses of India, him and Paul, breathing in unison. The rain's loud, battering against the glass, not a bit like India. Martha comes and puts her head in his lap. Paul looks at her for a second, looks irritated and turns away.</p><p>They stay like that for a while. John finds it strangely easy. He doesn't sit still much anymore. It usually worries him, he prefers to keep moving. But this is nice. Quiet. It reminds him of the early days, hanging out in Paul's bedroom when they were kids. Being with Paul was like a reset button or something back then. Everything that had been bothering him, working him up, would always float away when he was with Paul.</p><p>Until it was Paul that was bothering him, working him up. Fucking suing him.</p><p>He breathes in deeply, leans his head back against the wall.</p><p>"I got clean."</p><p>Paul doesn't move.</p><p>"But if you don't shift, I'm going to go downstairs and find your stash and smoke it all. And if I do that then I'll go out into the misty wilds of Scotland and find something even better, and I'll take that. So I need to go for a walk, you know, it doesn't matter about the weather. And you have to come with."</p><p>John ignores the ache in his stomach. The most selfish person in the entire world. He's been here a few hours and he's asking for things, making it about him and what he needs. Worthless fucking waste of fucking space.</p><p>Paul doesn't look at him. After a minute he gets out of bed and takes the coat with him. John follows him downstairs.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - -</p><p> </p><p>The rain is cold, the wind whips it against them. Martha walks behind Paul, letting him shelter her from the worst of it, clearly confused about what they're doing out here when there is a warm dry house with a fire and dog treats.</p><p>"Is there a shop?" John asks, looking at the fields stretching out.</p><p>"Four miles that way."</p><p>John nods, and sets off. Paul wonders if John knows how far four miles is. If he realises it's eight if they want to get back home again. Paul doesn't care enough to say anything. His hands are stuffed into gloves that don't fit properly over the bandages, and he shoves them in his pockets. His broken fingers ache and the cold makes it worse.</p><p>They walk for half an hour. Paul's knees are wet. There's a tear in his coat where the rain gets through and it's soaked through the velvet of his trouser, the fabric rubs cold against his skin.</p><p>They get to a track and Paul gestures left.</p><p>They walk a long time. The rain doesn't stop, the wind doesn't ease.</p><p>His foot blisters. He presses heavily on the sore spot every step. Feels the pain as it gets worse every second, and he pays it all his attention, working it out, feeling it out, interested in the colour and the movement of it. Better than the pain in his hand. New and sharper. He flashes again to thinking about chopping his hands off, so he won't have to look at them. And then he goes back to concentrating on his feet.</p><p>When they get to the village he hangs back, away from people. He sits on a bench and waits with Martha, while John goes in. John has a hat and two scarves on, but Paul supposes they'll recognise him. He wonders if they'll tell the press. If they do, the reporters might easily get to the farm before Paul and John are home again. Cameras and questions.</p><p>He suddenly feels very heavy.</p><p>"Is there a bus?" John asks when he gets back.</p><p>Paul doesn't look at him. Shakes his head. John shrugs and they set off back the way they came.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>At least it's mostly downhill on the way home. Paul leads the way this time, striding off without looking back to see if John's following.</p><p>They're maybe half way back when he falls.</p><p>They're in the middle of a field, farmland all John can see for miles in every direction. Paul's feet go from under him and he slides on the mud, and goes down. He yells, first with shock, then with real pain when he puts his hands out to break the fall. He tumbles a short way down the slope of the grass and ends up on his back, deep in mud. Martha rushes to him, tail wagging.</p><p>John stumbles down the bank to get to him, dropping his bags of shopping in the process. He leans over to help Paul up but Paul kicks him. Fucking hard, right on the shin.</p><p>"Fuck you, John." Paul is holding his hands to his chest, and twists to kick him again but John steps out of the way, slipping himself and only just staying upright. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck you."</p><p>The rain is practically horizontal at this point, biting into John's face, his eyes.</p><p>Paul has to put a hand to the mud to try to lift himself up, but when he does he yells again, and moans, and then it turns into a scream, and then he holds it, gives it full voice, long and furious. After a second he hits into the mud. First one hand and then the other, and he does it again, over and over, his bandages quickly caked in mud, and clearly causing more pain but past caring.</p><p>His hands find one of the packets of biscuits, and he launches them at John, smacks him right in the fucking face. "Shit, what the..."</p><p>"Why are you even here?"</p><p>Another packet hits him in the chest, and he nearly falls, feet sliding beneath him again.</p><p>Fucking rain won't stop, Martha's barking now, rushing around them, he's freezing, and he watches as the gingernuts split open, falling in the mud. Fuck that. He picks up the half packet and chucks it right back at Paul. Doesn't care if he's hurt, doesn't care if he's got every right in the world to be angry.</p><p>"Pretending to fucking care." Paul spits out, and barley sugars hit John's shoulder. "Everything I've written in the past four years is drivelling shit, right?"</p><p>Paul's scrabbling about in the mud, looking for more ammunition. He has to use both hands to pick them up. He finds the apples, which John bought for him, for Paul, thinking he should eat something healthy. Bought because he thinks he remembers Paul likes apples, and now he's throwing them right at John's damn head.</p><p>"Sodding hell. Stop it, you're..."</p><p>"You should be glad." An apple hits John's thigh and falls into the mud. "Go and tell the press that it's no great loss."</p><p>Another comes towards him and somehow John catches it. He throws it back, hard as he can. He misses, and reaches down for another.</p><p>"Tell them it's for the best. That's what you'll say." The packet of shortbread catches John's arm. "Not like he was ever going to write anything worthwhile again." His impression of John is terrible, always has been. "It's not like you even care John, so why can't you just go away?"</p><p>"You're being ridiculous,get up, stop-"</p><p>The remaining apples come one after another.</p><p>"I hate you. You know that? I tried not to, I didn't even think I could. But I do. I don't want you here, don't want you anywhere near me. Why would you possibly think I wanted you now? You're not my friend. You're not my anything, you're nothing, why are you here, you're just a fucking-"</p><p>John can't breathe, can't reply because he can't find air, the rain's cold, the wind's loud and it steals his breath. But rage builds in his throat, anger in his mouth, and when he finally finds his voice he's shouting, loud and fierce. "I hate you too. Don't you think I hate you too?" John snarls. He picks apples out of the dirt, starts sending them back as hard as he can. "You sodding well sued me, you fucking prick, you pretended all that time, that you-"</p><p>"You're a joke, a prophet of arsehole bullshit, talking crap and they fucking eat it up, don't they? Every meaningful fucking fart-"</p><p>"-you left me, you absolute shit. You. You're the one that's nothing, inside you're nothing, meaningless fucking drivel, never meant a word of anything you ever fucking said, and-"</p><p>"-I don't know why I ever fucking cared, you were always a fucking shit, from day one and I thought-"</p><p>Paul tries to get up again, and can't, the pain in his hands makes him shriek, cuts him off in full flow and he drops back into the mud, furious and raging.</p><p>"It was all fucking lies-" John grips the custard creams hard, feeling them breaking to dust between his fingers, and then chucks the remains straight at Paul's stupid fucking head, "-and all they want to talk about is how wonderful you are-"</p><p>"-all your bullshit about love and peace and you wouldn't even see me. I thought you were dying, and you.." Paul screams again, long loud frustration and anger and rage pouring out of him, "And then you come here and pretend you fucking give a shit, you never gave a shit about anyone in your bloody-"</p><p>Paul's run out of things to throw, and John is tired of fighting at a distance, he wants to get his hands on him, wants to shake him hard until he shuts up, wants to hit him. He nearly kicks him, he comes right up to it, but in the end all he does is stand over him, straddling him and leaning over to scream in his perfect fucking face.</p><p>"-you fucking lied to me my entire life, you're the biggest dick going, fucking bastard shit, but one smile and they can't see through it, that's why you hate me, because I can see through it and you can't bear it."</p><p>Paul screams at him, and John screams back.</p><p>And for a while that's all they are, everything they're made of. Ragged breaths, and long shrieks of pain and fury. Keeping tune with each other all the way.</p><p>Rain pours down.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul screams until he can't breathe, until he can't see, and he hopes he's dying, and he doesn't know why he's still alive.</p><p>John collapses into the mud next to him, and Paul shoves at him, hits at him, but John sits there all the same, and Paul gives up fighting, because it's meaningless. Everything they ever were is meaningless. Everything he ever was is gone. He screams again, fighting the silence. But his throat hurts and it quickly drops into low moans, and after a while Paul's aware that he's crying. Sobbing.</p><p>Paul's been crying for a long time before he realises John's crying too.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks ever so much for reading<br/>Hope you're enjoying it so far<br/>I'm <a href="https://zilabee.tumblr.com/">zilabee</a> over on tumblr if you want to see me there</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John rescues as much as he can from the mud. Arsed if he's walking twenty miles and coming home without any biscuits.</p><p>They don't speak a word on the way back.</p><p>Paul heads upstairs, trailing mud, dripping wet. And John watches him go.</p><p>He needs to change his own clothes, dry Martha, have a wash, think about making them some food.</p><p>He needs to ring Linda and tell her she has to come back.</p><p>He waits for any of that to happen.</p><p>Eventually, ten, fifteen minutes later, Paul starts back down the stairs, and John's still standing there.</p><p>Suddenly he remembers how to move and breathe. He takes his boots off, and puts the kettle on.</p><p>Paul's cleaned himself up as best he can, but his new clothes are already streaked with mud from his hands. John makes him tea with honey in it, and doesn't look at him. He goes to change.</p><p>When he comes back Paul has a tin on the table in front of him. He pushes it over and John opens it and finds bandages.</p><p>He looks down at Paul's dressings, and sees them properly for the first time, filthy and soaked through. The sight leaves him hollow with sudden panic and hot with shame. What the fuck was he thinking? What the fuck is he? He shouldn't have taken him out at all, but letting him fall, letting him sit in the fucking mud like that. Screaming at him.</p><p>A ghost of fear from the past suddenly catches inside him, says that Jim's going to come in any second and see what he's done. He'll never let him near Paul again if he sees him like this. John has to fight to stop himself tearing the bandages off, hiding them away so nobody will ever know how useless he is, how selfish. Nobody except Paul.</p><p>He sits opposite Paul at the table, and unwraps the dressings slowly, carefully as he can. Paul sits still, his hands steady. He's letting John do it, but John can feel how hard that is, every second. Paul's fingers are cold, almost blue. John feels sick.</p><p>His right hand is... fine almost. A crookedness in his fingers that wouldn't look so bad on anyone else, hands he didn't know so well. Linda told him there was some nerve damage. He'll never have the full range of movement from before. John holds Paul's hand a moment longer than he needs to and Paul pulls away.</p><p>John moves onto the bandages on the left. It's much worse, as he knew it would be. Scarred and twisted. John feels horror curling in his stomach, and pain pulsing in his own palms, in his feet too. He clenches his fists, his body automatically reminding itself that his hands are still there, still whole. But he doesn't feel whole. The urge to fix it, the absolute need, swims through him, suffocating and desperate. And it's closely pursued by the knowledge that there's nothing he can do. It's like being eaten from the inside out and for a moment the world spins around him. He bites his lip and waits for it to pass.</p><p>Paul's looking at the floor; he hasn't looked at John once since they got home.</p><p>"You'll have to tell me what to do."</p><p>Paul nods. Still looking at the floor.</p><p>He talks him through it. After a minute John feels tears welling in his eyes and brushes them away so he can concentrate. He glances to Paul to see if he's noticed and finds Paul's crying too.</p><p>Maybe that's all they have left now.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>The next day Paul stays in bed and John leaves him alone.</p><p>Paul's throat hurts, sore from screaming and yelling. He wonders how hard to you have to scream before your voice is gone forever. He wants it gone. Wants to kill every small part of himself, piece by piece, until there's nothing left.</p><p>Twice John comes in and leaves food by the bed, and he doesn't say anything and he doesn't stay and Paul doesn't turn to look at him.</p><p>Eventually he eats a sandwich, and it tastes good and it makes him angry. He's not sure why. He lies back down and ignores his anger, ignores his hurt, ignores his heartbeat.</p><p>In the evening he hears banging downstairs, hears John cursing and kicking something. Paul frowns, and a flutter of panic hits him.</p><p>A minute later his bedroom door swings open. "Where the arse is your fucking whisky?"</p><p>Dread blooms in Paul's stomach.</p><p>"I can't find a sodding key to the fucking cabinet."</p><p>John's voice is restrained, but he kicks the door frame as he speaks. His hair's a mess, and his eyes are tired.</p><p>"Tell me where it is and I'll go."</p><p>Paul sits up. He doesn't know what to say.</p><p>"It's an easy question, isn't it? Where's the key?"</p><p>"Don't."</p><p>"What?" John asks reflexively. Then he really looks at him, for the first time, and seems confused. "What?" he repeats, a genuine question now.</p><p>"You got clean. Don't..." Paul gestures. Don't fuck it up because of me.</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>Paul boxed up all his weed the night before, hid it in one of the greenhouses. The key to the cabinet's there too. John won't find it.</p><p>"You should go," Paul says quietly. "America will let you back." Paul doesn't know if they will, but he has to believe it because he can't be the reason John's new, perfect life falls apart. "Call Yoko, she'll sort it out. I'll be okay on my own."</p><p>John stares at him.</p><p>"At least call her, John. She'll know what to say." Yoko knows how to look after him. Got him clean. He needs her. Why she let him come here, he'll never know.</p><p>"I still fucking drink, Paul. I kicked heroin, not booze."</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>Paul waits a few seconds, and meets John's eyes, testing the truth of it and letting it settle. Then he shrugs, reaches under the bed and brings out half a bottle of rum. Holds it out.</p><p>John grins.</p><p>He comes to take it off him, and Paul doesn't think, just moves over to make a space.</p><p>With the barest hesitation John sits beside him, and they drink.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>They're quiet for a while. They're quiet for long time. John thinks they have nothing left to say to each other at last. After twenty years. Eighteen years. He doesn't know how long it's been. Forever.</p><p>"How long?" Paul asks eventually.</p><p>John startles, thinking he's reading his mind again, but then he realises what he's asking. "Nearly eight months."</p><p>He tries to say it casually, but he's proud of it. Eight months without a pill or a needle or a smoke.</p><p>Paul doesn't say anything, but John feels it in the way he breathes, almost nods, half glances at him: Paul's proud too, pleased for him, impressed, relieved, a hundred different things he doesn't need to say.</p><p>They're quiet again.</p><p>Eight months. It sounds impressive. It doesn't feel like eight months. It feels like two hundred and something days. Each one at once a tiny thing and a mountain of its own. And he thinks about the number of times he almost slipped, nearly fell.</p><p>It's raining again.</p><p>"I got your postcard." John doesn't mean to say it, because he knows it doesn't mean anything now. Paul is very still next to him. "From after the boat. Yoko didn't... I didn't see it at the time. But then I found it just a couple of months ago when I was..." He doesn't want to say it, he feels it fighting the edges of his mouth. He realises he wants Paul to stay proud of him. "I was looking for pills in Yoko's office. And I found it."</p><p>He waits. For Paul to say he doesn't even remember sending it, or that he wishes he hadn't. Waits for Paul to break his heart completely.</p><p>Paul doesn't say anything. Probably confused why John is talking to him about a nothing postcard that didn't mean anything.</p><p>"I didn't take them. The pills. It was... it was nice of you to send it." 'nice'. John hates himself.</p><p>He'd been in the blackest place, truly desperate again, for the first time since he'd come out of withdrawal. Needed something to take away his edges, let him slip away into some other place and time, steal his hours and his days, and instead he'd found a fucking postcard. 'I hope you're ok'. It had felt like the weight of him doubled and he was solid again, like the world was in focus, all that poetic shit. Four words from holy fucking Saint Paul and John was awake for the first time in months, years maybe.</p><p>"It meant a lot, that's all," he manages. Pathetic.</p><p>Paul dips his head, and John doesn't know what it means.</p><p>They sit for a while, and then Paul speaks like words are hard to find. "I just thought you'd tear it up, you know." He glances at John and away again. He almost says something more, but not quite.</p><p>Instead he takes the bottle back, has to use both hands to lift it to his lips. John looks at the bandages and wonders if he was meant to change them again today. Wonders if there's a limit on how many different ways you can let someone down.</p><p>When he passes the bottle back again Paul's arm presses against John's and stays there.</p><p>He takes a breath, and when he speaks he sounds careful, aware he's treading in difficult water. "You didn't see it? When I sent it."</p><p>John turns away from him, turns away from thinking about it. But he's got a right to ask.</p><p>"I wasn't well for a long time. I had pneumonia, but not just that, I was coming down from something. You know, when I woke up on the boat I wanted to go back in the water again. I thought it was safer for some reason, in the water. They had to tie me down. They got me home and I went cold turkey from a lot of things at once, and I was sick, too. It was hard and terrifying, you know, full on. I think... Yoko thought the card might upset me, you know? So she didn't give it to me then. But she kept it."</p><p>The last part is defensive. He's persuading himself, not Paul. She kept it and it was there when he needed it. He doesn't know whether it would have upset him at the time. It might have, or it might have meant the world. But he's not sure, so Yoko couldn't have been sure, either. And she'd kept it at least.</p><p>Course, she hadn't given it to him, even afterwards. Later.</p><p>John doesn't want to think about it. He goes downstairs to fetch the rescued biscuits. Not many survived and John ate the custard creams for lunch. He shares out what's left, two and a half ginger nuts each.</p><p>It's a long time and an inch of rum before John finds the courage to say the only thing he's wanted to say all day.</p><p>"She said you didn't want to see me. At the hospital."</p><p>"That's b-" Paul's voice is hard and angry, and he cuts himself off immediately, clenching his jaw and looking away.</p><p>John already knew it was bollocks. At six months sober a lot of things were suddenly bollocks.</p><p>Beside him, Paul takes a long slow breath. "Maybe... maybe she didn't understand..." he says eventually, with no trace of belief in his tone. Saying it for John alone. "She was upset."</p><p>That Paul still cares about him enough to pretend cuts John wide open and strangles around his throat.</p><p>He takes another drink. He looks at the window. He picks crumbs off his jumper.</p><p>"You're saying you did? You wanted to see me?"</p><p>He'd said it in the field, in the mud. <em>I thought you were dying and you wouldn't even see me.</em></p><p>Paul doesn't speak, just gives a small nod.</p><p>John knows it's the truth, and it soothes him in a way he isn't going to pretend to understand. It also stabs through him, cutting into the place that, until recently, he was so sure of.</p><p>"And you told her?" He's not even angry, just needs it confirming for sure.</p><p>Paul half almost glances at him. Nods again.</p><p>John drinks. Then drinks again. He stares at the back of his hand for a minute. Two.</p><p>"I know it's not easy, but... The thing is you have to... you have to forgive her stuff, you know, it's the same as with me. She pretends she's not, but she's just as messed up as I am, I think even more sometimes."</p><p>Paul's quiet, but he takes a breath and half shrugs something that might be understanding.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>They don't talk a lot after that. There is brandy under the bed to compliment the rum. They finish their biscuits.</p><p>By midnight, they're perfectly drunk, balanced beautifully where the real world is still steady but the edges are soft, all the gentle underneath opened up.</p><p>Paul goes to the loo and doesn't come back.</p><p>John goes searching and finds him in the bathtub. Sitting cross legged, still in pyjamas and dressing gown. John slides to the floor by the side of the tub, back against the wall, and takes the brandy when it's offered.</p><p>John still ends up in bathrooms at every party, looking for the rest of them, looking for Paul mostly. He always takes his time in there, imagining the other three with him, sitting, talking about nothing, locking out the noise for as long as they can get away with before someone comes to drag them back into the fray.</p><p>"Me too," Paul says, softly, and John realises he might be talking out loud.</p><p>He likes thinking about Paul sitting in bathrooms thinking about him.</p><p>"I'm going to kill myself," Paul says then, as if it follows on. His voice quiet, but steady.</p><p>John feels all the alcohol in his system solidify, turned to stone inside him.</p><p>"Not yet," Paul adds. "Not until things are more settled."</p><p>John breathes.  It's not like he didn't already know. The moment Linda told him what happened, he knew.</p><p>Paul looks down at his bandages, back up at the ceiling.</p><p>"Don't tell Lin."</p><p>John stares at him.</p><p>"Promise," Paul says.</p><p>John stares at his feet. "Okay."</p><p>Eventually Paul reaches for the bottle again and John gives it to him.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Two in the morning and they're deeply drunk. It is the only thing they're sure of in the world.</p><p>Paul couldn't find the key, they spent twenty minutes in the rain, wind howling in the trees, looking in every fucking shed and barn. After a while he found an axe instead, and they liberated the alcohol cabinet that way.</p><p>John starts to mix the drinks with orange juice and lemonade, and he only gives Paul half measures, and Paul lets him because he lets John do whatever he wants to, he always has. Because he's a fucking pathetic piece of shit who thought John loved him. Thought that they were something together. John killed that. Took an axe and chopped right through it.</p><p>And now he's here, just to show Paul how easily it can grow back, how it is to feel whole again... before he tears it out of him again.</p><p>It's too easy, being with John.</p><p>They're waiting for Linda to come back, and then John will leave.</p><p>Paul takes deep breaths.</p><p>It's quiet, except for the rain.</p><p>"When did you do it?" John asks.</p><p>It's quiet except for John.</p><p>His whole life might have been quiet, except for John.</p><p>Paul closes his eyes for a second, and when he does John is standing over him, pulling parts of him out, and throwing them away into the mud. He blinks and focuses on the carpet, shakes the image out of his head.</p><p>"The key," John prompts, because Paul isn't answering him. "When did you do it?"</p><p>"Last night."</p><p>John looks at him then, takes his time studying Paul's face while Paul looks at the floor. He knows what John's thinking and fuck him for it.</p><p>"I dragged you ten miles in the pouring rain and," John pushes his fingers through his hair, "I fucking threw things at you, and you came back here and-"</p><p>"So what?" There's more heat in his voice than he'd expected. It's almost a growl, warning John off.</p><p>"If you hate me so much, why would you care if I-"</p><p>"Why shouldn't I?" He says it without thinking. "What business is it of yours, what I care about?"</p><p>Paul is very definitely forever done with crying in front of John. He takes Martha into the garden.</p><p>Martha leans against his leg, and he lets the tears blur the stars, and he thinks about what his girls will feel when they see his hands for the first time, and he thinks about the press, eager for the first photo, and he thinks about saying goodbye to John when he leaves and never comes back again, and he thinks about everything he knows not to think about.</p><p>And after a while he's cold and he goes back inside.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Three in the morning. Three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock rock.</p><p>John tries to shake the music out of his head.</p><p>He put his guitar down when the phone rang. From the state of Linda's voice he'd been sure Paul was dead. When she told him what had happened he couldn't process it, his mind was completely empty for long minutes. Straight away his own palms ached, fingers clenched into fists that he couldn't uncurl for hours, and he'd looked at his guitar and felt sick right through. Even now the idea of picking one up again tightens John's heart. The music in his head makes him tense and sick. It's out of place. It's a thing from the past.</p><p>He drains his glass and goes to the kitchen for a refill.</p><p>Paul's sitting at the kitchen table. John refills Paul's drink along with his own. Manners.</p><p>He takes a long drink, aware it makes things worse, aware it makes things better. He hasn't been drunk like this in a long time, hasn't been sure he can trust himself. But it feels fine. Mostly feels fine because Paul's here and Paul won't let him do anything stupid. Because for some reason Paul still cares. It pulses through him. Better than music.</p><p>John opens the cupboards, searching for food and distraction from thoughts he can't believe in.</p><p>"Top of the fridge."</p><p>John glances to him. Then looks on top of the fridge. A tin, right at the back.</p><p>He finds a whole, unopened, packet of shortbread and another of orange clubs.</p><p>"Fuck's sake." He resists the urge to throw them at Paul's head. He's lost enough that way already. Instead he takes a shortbread finger and places another in front of Paul. "You could have fucking told me."</p><p>Paul shrugs. John puts the rest back in the tin, back on the fridge. Doesn't know how long until Linda will come back, so they should ration.</p><p>"When the press find out you're here, they'll come," Paul says, out of nothing. "They'll have a field day. This," he lifts his hands, "And you."</p><p>John sits down opposite Paul. He nods. That's not news. That's what happens.</p><p>"They have to find out eventually, Paul," he tries to say it kindly but he knows it sounds hard.</p><p>He takes his glasses off, and presses his eyes until he can see stars.</p><p>"What are you going to tell them?"</p><p>John shrugs, he hasn't thought about it. He's not going to tell them anything probably.</p><p>"They'll write that I asked you to come, you know. That I never got over you, and you took pity on me."</p><p>John's tired and he doesn't want to think about the fucking press and their fucking questions. "What does it matter what they write?"</p><p>Trust Paul to be thinking about the fucking PR of it right now, thinking about his fucking image when they're together again for the first time in years, when he's suicidal and drunk and broken... and still fucking worried about what the world will think. This is the whole fucking problem with Paul fucking McCartney.</p><p>Paul stares at the table for a minute.</p><p>Then he takes his drink and leaves.</p><p>John sits at the kitchen table and stays angry for about twelve seconds.</p><p>"Fuck."</p><p>Who is he to tell Paul what Paul's meant to care about, right?</p><p>Paul shouldn't care about him but he fucking does, despite everything. Hid his fucking weed in the middle of the night with two broken hands and every right in the world to want John dead. Was kind as he could be about Yoko upstairs. John spent three years pissing all over him and Paul sent him a fucking postcard. Who the fuck is John Lennon to tell Paul McCartney what he's allowed to fucking care about?</p><p>
  <em>"You'll tell them it's for the best."</em>
</p><p>That's what he'd said in the field. One of the first things he'd said.</p><p>John runs his fingers through his hair, strokes the back of his head.</p><p>He didn't think about it at the time, he was angry, but even now he wants to scream that Paul should know him better, should know he'd never think that, not for a second. Except there's no real fight to it, because Paul's got every right to think anything he sodding well wants to about what a piece of shit John can be. If anyone knows, it's Paul.</p><p>John finishes his glass, and pours another. He wants to be sick, he wants to leave, he just wants to be able to take Paul's hands in his own and mend them.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul's locked himself in his study.</p><p>John tries the door twice. He knocks and nothing.</p><p>He sits down with his back to the wall and waits.</p><p>He waits two minutes, then five.</p><p>"Paul, you have to open it."</p><p>He waits more.</p><p>"Let me in."</p><p>Nothing</p><p>John closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall.</p><p>"I'll tell them you didn't. That you didn't ask me to come. I'll tell them you didn't want me."</p><p>John aches at the simple truth in the words. His knees are up in front of him, he rests his elbows on them and holds his head in his hands, looking down at the floor. John thinks the truth isn't good for anything but it's the only thing he's got with him.</p><p>"I'll tell them that I'm only here because I needed to see you, and that I begged you to let me stay."</p><p>Maybe he hadn't, but maybe he's doing it now.</p><p>"I'll tell them you threw fucking apples at me, and I begged you to let me stay anyway." John's voice shakes and his feet hurt.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>"I'll say that you left me. Not the other way around." His voice catches. Even here, just the two of them, this is what John can hardly stand to say. Even now, after all this time, he wants to hide it and bury it. His throat is dry. "And I was so... ashamed. And I wanted, I was like a kid lashing out, y'know. 'I'm leaving' 'well I never wanted you anyway'. I'll tell them that you left me, 'cause you didn't need me like I needed you, and I couldn't bear it. I never wanted anyone to know it."</p><p>John sighs, runs his hands through his hair, and blinks back tears.</p><p>"I'll tell them... that I've been desperate to see you. For months. I've been... I kept picking up the phone and was too fucking terrified to dial, in case..."</p><p>In case it was too late.</p><p>"I thought you'd hang up on me and I was too much of a coward."</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>John's heartbeat is hard and fast. He sits up straight and swallows what's left of his drink. He stares blindly at the other side of the corridor in front of him. Left his glasses in the kitchen.</p><p>"I'll tell them I love you."</p><p>He freezes for a moment, a catch in time without breath or heartbeat until he forces himself to go on.</p><p>"And I... I've..." His hands are shaking, he hugs them around his waist. "I tried not to, because I thought... I wanted to hate you, you know? But even when I hated you, I always loved you more. I'll tell them that."</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>Paul's probably asleep or passed out. John puts his head in his hands. His blood rushes in his ears. For a second he thinks he's going to throw up. He takes a deep breath and waits for it to pass.</p><p>Paul's voice, when it comes, is close. Right there on the other side of the wall.</p><p>"It's too late now." Paul's voice catches on the words, and John hurts right through. "There's no point."</p><p>No point telling them, or no point loving him. No point saying it, or no point feeling it. Too late. All of it. John wipes his eyes.</p><p>"You should have called me," Paul says, so quiet John hardly catches it.</p><p>John's throat closes, he chokes on the pain of it, tries to expel it in a long gush of air.</p><p>"I know."</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Paul doesn't know how long they sit there. Him on one side of the wall, John on the other.</p><p>He knows he needs to say something more, but he doesn't know where to start or where it would end. And then he hears John get up, and open the front door, and leave, slamming it behind him.</p><p>Paul stays where he is. He doesn't move or think or feel anything at all. The alcohol in him turns to bile and it writhes in his throat and intestines until he wants to throw up. But he keeps perfectly still. Holds every thought perfectly still. If he lets them move he knows they will strangle him, and he will shatter. He's cold. John's gone. He's tired.</p><p>It's over now and he can sleep.</p><p>He looks at the desk and thinks about the pills at the back of the drawer. It will look like a mistake. That helped. When it was Brian it helped knowing that it wasn't on purpose.</p><p>He doesn't want to see Brian again. Doesn't want him to know everything that happened after he left them.</p><p>He sits very still.</p><p>John breaks in through the window.</p><p>Waves of relief and warmth wash through Paul and he feels them bring him back to himself and doesn't want to analyse that feeling, familiar and strange all at once.</p><p>It isn't elegant. John is drunk. The axe is heavy. John makes a lot more mess of Paul's window frame than he needs to, then pushes it open and trips over the ledge as he climbs through, and falls into the room. Paul watches him silently.</p><p>Eventually he manages to get upright again, brushes himself off. He looks at Paul for a second and then doesn't. He half sits and half leans against the desk, looking at the wall.</p><p>They don't look at each other, and they don't speak. Several years pass around them, while they're caught here, barely breathing.</p><p>"We should go to bed," John says eventually.</p><p>He sounds far away and Paul doesn't know where they are now, either of them. He nods. They should go to bed and then all of this will be yesterday.</p><p>Neither of them move.</p><p>When Paul manages to speak it's barely a whisper. Even now he doesn't quite want to give it voice, he fears letting it out of his grasp.</p><p>"I love you too, you know?"</p><p>John half smiles, he half breathes, he half glances at Paul, and half turns away. He stares at the ceiling, then at the carpet.</p><p>"You don't have to."</p><p>Paul nods slowly. "I know. That's what the psychotherapist kept saying."</p><p>John half smiles, half frowns. "Fucking therapists."</p><p>"Yeah. I didn't go back."</p><p>John breathes half a laugh.</p><p>And then they're quiet again.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>After a few minutes John slides down to the floor and sits cross legged, hands in his lap, looking down at them. He looks young.</p><p>"You remember in Hamburg, the Candar Club?" Paul says. An offering of something easier than anything else he might say.</p><p>John snorts a laugh, and Paul smiles wide.</p><p>Couldn't afford the door price so they snuck in through the window in the gents. Paul climbed through easy enough, but John got his trousers caught on the latch, and George, outside, had to reach under and unzip him. John had landed in a heap at Paul's feet, leaving his trousers behind him, just in time for one of the bouncers to investigate the noise, and throw them both out the back door yelling a stream of angry german about prozzies and poofters.</p><p>John does a perfect pisstake of it now, just the way they did at the time, a loud stream of mock german, high and camp.</p><p>Paul remembers they pissed against the walls in revenge. God they'd been young.</p><p>"Maybe windows aren't really my fort," John says thoughtfully.</p><p>"You're good with doors, though."</p><p>"Yeah, masters first class with doors, always have been. Never had a lesson, you know, just picked it up."</p><p>"The boy's a genius," Paul says, lifting his glass and taking a drink.</p><p>John moves closer to take the glass off him and he drinks too, having not brought one of his own.</p><p>When Paul reaches to take it back, John doesn't let him. Paul kicks him. But gently.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>They pass outside time. They sit and the world is still. The night will never end.</p><p>It's cold because the window is broken.</p><p>"Shouldn't you do something..." John waves towards the problem.</p><p>"You're the one that broke it."</p><p>"Ah, but it's your window."</p><p>"Ah, but I haven't got any hands, you see."</p><p>They're shocked into silence for a second, and then they both laugh, so sudden and hard that it scares them, and the shock of it makes them laugh harder and John feels love so fierce it burns in his chest.</p><p>He concedes the point.</p><p>Eventually he manages to tip the desk onto one end, and manoeuvres it enough that he can push it up against the broken frame, blocking the gap. Or some of the gap. He balances a chair on the top to finish it off.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul gets the scotch he's been keeping in his bookcase, hidden from Linda. So many things to keep hidden from Linda. He wishes she was here. He's glad she's not. She deserves so much better.</p><p>Paul pours them both a drink, then settles on the small sofa in the corner. John's lying on the carpet. They opened the door for Martha, and she's lying with him, pressed up against his leg.</p><p>"She's missed you," he says.</p><p>He sees John smile.</p><p>I've missed you, he thinks.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Bill Haley's whole catalogue is running through John now, brain set in a familiar groove, and it won't be shook free. He doesn't even fucking like Bill Haley.</p><p>He doesn't open his mouth, but his brain's screaming it out.</p><p>
  <em>Two hound dogs, sitting on a stump... </em>
</p><p>John sees Paul tense up, like he can hear it.</p><p>
  <em>Something 'bout music, they started to jump... </em>
</p><p>He can feel the chords, can feel the shape of the music in the air around him, makes him want to be sick, makes him want to dance, makes him want to be young again.</p><p>
  <em>Can't dance well, they ain't got no shoes... </em>
</p><p>Imagines Paul screaming out the lyrics right next to him, breath hot. Nobody will ever know but Paul sang even fucking better when it was the two of them, better than he ever did it on a stage or in a studio, let loose in a way he wouldn't do in front of other people, just the two of them was always better, god they made a noise.</p><p>
  <em>Two ol' dogs named rhythm and blues.</em>
</p><p>He shakes his head, trying to make it stop.</p><p>Even now John's not quite sure if that Paul, the real one, disappeared, or if he was still in there when it all went wrong, and John just couldn't find him anymore. It's hard now, looking back on that time, trying to know what was real and what was drugs and what was noise and what was Paul and what was him. Always been hard to know what's Paul and what's him.</p><p>John wonders why they didn't just slow down. Sit down. Stop feeling everything and just sit for a while. Have a cup of tea.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>"You were right about Klein," John says.</p><p>Paul looks at the ceiling.</p><p>He lies back on the settee and feels himself disintegrating into the cushions beneath him. He was right. For all the good it did him.</p><p>"I didn't mean to be."</p><p>They sit with it for a while.</p><p>"I never meant any of it to be how it was," Paul says quietly.</p><p>"Don't think any of us did."</p><p>"No."</p><p>He takes deep breaths, his chest heavy. He thinks about how different it should have been.</p><p>"I'll sign your papers," John says eventually, and he sounds small. "We can... untangle as it were."</p><p>Paul's stomach aches.</p><p>"They're not <em>my</em> papers. They're just paper. It wasn't-"</p><p>"I know. I didn't mean it like that."</p><p>Paul breathes and wishes everything in the world was different.</p><p>"It's not like it matters anymore." Nothing matters. It never did. Paul sighs, his breath shaking. "But I need the money to be... I need Linda and the girls to be okay, you know?" He bites his lip. "You and the others, you'll..?"</p><p>A tear runs from the corner of his eye and into his ear.</p><p>John takes a long time and Paul knows it's not fair.</p><p>"Ringo."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Only a fucking moron would trust their family to George or me. Richie'll look after them. I'll tell him."</p><p>Paul feels half a smile despite everything. He wipes his eyes on his bandages.</p><p>They're quiet for a while.</p><p>"It never mattered, Paul. The money, the lawyers, any of it. It was just a piece of you I didn't have to give up. You were still mine, you know, on paper. And I knew you'd have to ring me about it, I could send a letter or ignore a letter or set fire to a letter, you know, and I knew you'd ring."</p><p>Paul's chest hurts.</p><p>"I would have rung anyway, John."</p><p>"But I had to be sure."</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul's dead, he just hasn't killed himself yet.</p><p>John picks at his fingernail.</p><p>And if Paul's dead, John's dead. Good as.</p><p>And the dead don't have to be scared.</p><p>John gets up. Goes over to the hifi. He feels Paul watching him, tense. John wonders if he's going to throw things at him again. He smiles as he glances over the records - some arranged neatly on the shelf, but far more arranged in haphazard stacks in whatever order Paul last listened to them.</p><p>He sits and picks through them.</p><p>"John..."</p><p>Otis Redding, David Bowie, a couple of people John doesn't know. Picks them up to find Mind Games underneath. He looks at that and his chest expands and implodes. Moves it out the way and finds the single of All You Need Is Love below it. He strokes his fingers over it gently. Please Please Me is sitting underneath it. Pepper under that. John wonders when Paul was listening to them, what mood he was in.</p><p>He stands up and switches the record player on, lifts the cover.</p><p>"Don't, John." Soft and tired.</p><p>John puts the record in place, and moves the arm across. Lowers the lid carefully. Spins the volume high.</p><p>Paul shakes his head, hopeless. "I can't."</p><p>John sinks into the settee beside Paul, who makes a pained noise and turns away, as he hears the Marseillaise start up. He's pulled his knees up, curled in on himself, face turned to the wall, biting his lip.</p><p>Crying. But they're getting good at that now.</p><p>John puts his hand on Paul's arm and lets him cry and lets the music play, so loud it reaches his bones and fills the night. Love, love, love. They really thought it might be that simple. John still feels it sometimes, despite all the evidence to the contrary.</p><p>He breathes it in and lets it drive everything else out. His fingers ache.</p><p>He remembers the day, live broadcast to however million people. Paul next to him. He never thought to be scared when Paul was next to him. Ringo steady as anything, George nervous but hiding it better than any of them. Four of them all alone, surrounded by people, but apart. They were better than anyone and they fucking knew it the moment the music kicked in. Best high John's ever had.</p><p>John sways, floating on the bass. His bones ache.</p><p>He wants to be sick and he wants to be whole.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>The music makes his hands hurt, even worse than before. He should take another painkiller. He should take them all.</p><p>Paul feels sick.</p><p>The music strangles through him, pulling him out of shape.</p><p>He can feel a guitar in his hands. The weight of it. The only thing he ever had to hold onto.</p><p>A guitar in his hands, sitting in his bedroom. First time he ever played John something he'd written himself. Bravest thing he ever did.</p><p>A guitar in his hands, first show to a paying audience. John grins at him across the stage and it's so easy after that.</p><p>A guitar in his hands, live broadcast to five hundred million people. Terrified and loving it, perfect song, John next to him, eyes bright, nothing they can't do.</p><p>A guitar in his hands, sitting in the hospital. Waiting to hear that John's dead.</p><p>He pulls away from John and pushes his hands behind him, hiding them in the small of his back, chasing the feeling away, it isn't his any more, it's dead, he's dead, it's all done.</p><p>But he feels the music in his chest all the same. It lifts him, drags him out of himself and into the world and if his throat didn't still hurt he would scream until he threw up.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>The music winds down into a beautiful, perfect muddle. A cacophony they put together in one session and it's fucking golden. So easy back then.</p><p>Quiet seeps back into the room. John can hear the wind battering at the windows. Martha's snoring.</p><p>"You loved me," Paul says quietly.</p><p>John stares at him for a second.</p><p>"That day," Paul says, seriously as anything. "You loved me and I loved you."</p><p>John nods, feels like he's blown apart, all the pieces floating, nowhere to settle. He loved Paul, and Paul loved him. He'd almost forgotten.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The wind picks up and up, until it's howling through the gap in the frame. They sit for a long time, listening. The echo of music still in the air. Thunder starts to rumble in the distance.</p><p>John remembers a storm. Remembers running through the streets, chasing each other, yelling in the rain and the wind, driven wild by it, electricity in the air. Hamburg. Liverpool. Somewhere else? He remembers barrelling into someone, some gent in a hat, and the guy's wife swinging her handbag at him, remembers Paul running past, laughing his head off as he took the lead.</p><p>He's never remembered that before.</p><p>But he's remembered every bad time going.</p><p>Paul's hands are still hidden firmly behind him. Looking at him everything might be perfectly normal. John drinks that in desperately, longing for it with all his blood, catching hold of the feeling for a second at a time and letting it be real.  </p><p>A part of him keeps whispering that they can fix it.  Nothing they can't do, it says firmly.  Nothing.  But that's gone, they broke that.  Ground it up.  And now his wishes haven't come true in a very long time.</p><p>"Paul, you know that if I could, I-"</p><p>"Don't, John."</p><p>Paul's tone is a firm warning. He knows what John's saying, and he isn't interested.  Why would he be?  Meaningless, useless platitudes. But John has to say it, it's there right in his middle, killing him.</p><p>"If I could take it instead. I would. In a second."</p><p>Paul doesn't move. He clenches his jaw.</p><p>"I'd do it, too," he says, blankly, after a few moments. He looks at the wall, and takes a long, calm breath.  "If I could make it you. Or George. In a second, I'd put it on any of you."  The smallest twist of his mouth.  "Even Linda."</p><p>His voice is firm, no waver.  But he looks like one touch would shatter him.  He's speaking from somewhere cold and hard, a dark spot deep inside him that he's never liked. </p><p>John fucking loves it. </p><p>Best part of him there is.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John goes to the loo, and Paul sits alone in the cold.</p><p>He doesn't doubt that John would do it. He feels it every time John looks at his bandages, every time he touches him.</p><p>And in New York, in the hospital, if they'd let him, Paul would have taken John's place without thinking.</p><p>John who hates him more than he's ever been hated. Loves him more than he's ever been loved.</p><p>Paul goes over to the window, the one John didn't take an axe to. He turns the lights out so he can see out. The wind's whipping through the trees, dragging at the branches and leaves, dying to take them away, take them today.</p><p>John comes back and sits in the dark with him.</p><p>Paul remembers the hospital, all the things he was going to say when Yoko finally let him talk to John.</p><p>He remembers John on that boat on the other side of the world, everything he wanted to write on that fucking postcard but didn't know how to say.</p><p>Paul remembers the mud.</p><p>
  <em>you pretended you loved me, and then you left me</em>
</p><p>That's what John had said. Paul wants to cut him open and take it out of him. Burn it out of him.</p><p>"I wrote you a-"</p><p>He stops himself in time. He feels the chasm opening up in front of him and just stops himself from stepping out into it. Everything John has said in the last four years comes back to him at once, and he feels a flash of pure stupid hurt saving him from-</p><p>John's looking at him. Paul knows it, and when he turns John's eyes are deep and steady, dark with want... while the rest of him plays it cool.</p><p>A few long seconds, and then John tilts his head slightly. He knows Paul's chickening out, falling back. He won't even call him on it. His mouth turns down, and his eyes turn away.</p><p>"In the hospital," Paul says. He wants to burn it out of him. "I wrote you a song."</p><p>Neither of them breathe. Words never spoken before. New ground.</p><p>"You were-" his throat closes and he has to wait until he can swallow again before he goes on. "You were dying and I-" He gives up.</p><p>John is silent. Deadly still.</p><p>"It's not finished, you know, I never.."</p><p>He runs broken fingers through filthy hair. He leans against the window frame and looks at the floor.</p><p><em>"Did I-"</em> He hasn't sung since the accident, his throat is raw from yesterday, made worse by alcohol and cold night air. His voice is dust.</p><p>He stops, and lets his breath steady. He turns back to look outside. He tries again, much quieter, barely above a whisper.</p><p>
  <em>"Did I ever, take you in my arms..."</em>
</p><p>It sounds hollow and pathetic, without the music behind it.</p><p>
  <em>"If I never did it, I was only waiting..."</em>
</p><p>He hums to try and give it shape, and he feels his broken fingers trying to shape the chords. John won't like it. John doesn't like his songs.</p><p>
  <em>"The swan is gliding, across the ocean..."</em>
</p><p>Paul's voice shakes and he stumbles over the lines he's most pleased with.</p><p>
  <em>"Did I ever, touch you on the cheek, say that you were -"</em>
</p><p>Suddenly the intimacy of it hits him and everything freezes, his voice disappears, and he's shaking.</p><p>He doesn't know how to start again, he looks at the windowsill and picks at the flaking paint. What does it even mean? John deserves better, a song that says what he means, not just an apology for not saying it.</p><p>There's quiet for a long moment.</p><p>When John speaks his voice is low and thick. "Will you write it down for me?"</p><p>Paul half nods even though John can't see him in the dark, and he can't hold a pen. He wants to laugh. He stares at the night, and realises he's going to be sick.</p><p>He escapes to the bathroom.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John brings him water, and they sit on the bathroom floor. Paul rinses his mouth out and spits into the toilet. His stomach rolls.</p><p>John sits opposite him, leaning against the door.</p><p>"You wrote me a song," he says, and he's glowing a little inside, and it's good and it's bad. Paul groans, he should never have told him it was for him. Scales tipped forever.</p><p>"It doesn't mean-"</p><p>"I know what it means, Paul." He looks at him like he's a patronising idiot.</p><p>And that's fair. The rest of the world never got it, but John knows. 'It's like a marriage' they would both say, because there wasn't any language for it. But it wasn't like a marriage. It wasn't like anything. It was a thing all its own. And only John knows what anything means.</p><p>"It's good," John says quietly, and then, "You didn't record it."</p><p>Paul pulls a face.</p><p>"What? Nobody would have known it was for me. It could have been about anyone."</p><p>"You would have known."</p><p>"And you didn't want me to have it."</p><p>Paul thinks that sounds so stupid now, but it's right. He shrugs. It's half right. Some of it was just that he couldn't play the thing for months without being right back there, filled with panic and dread. Maybe eventually he would have put it out. And waited for John to rubbish it.</p><p>John looks at him for a long time. Paul looks at his feet.</p><p>"I listened to <em>Dear Friend</em> so many times that Yoko broke it in half. Had to buy another."</p><p>Oh. A smile tugs at him.</p><p>His stomach takes offence at the sudden mix of emotions inside, and he heaves and kneels up just in time to throw up into the toilet bowl again.</p><p>John doesn't move, just waits for him to be finished and flush it away with a quiet moan. He rinses his mouth out and slumps back down into position, waiting for the next round.</p><p>When he looks back John's frowning and his eyes are shaded. He's suddenly very interested in the pattern on the handtowel hanging next to him.</p><p>"After <em>Imagine</em>, I thought you'd..."</p><p>John trails off, but he doesn't need to go on. Paul knows what he thought, that he'd expected something different to <em>Dear Friend</em>.</p><p>"It was... When they- the way they all reacted to <em>How Do You Sleep</em>. I didn't know they would-"</p><p>"Fuck off, John, you did. Of course you did."</p><p>John immediately becomes slightly more comfortable, more himself. A glint in his eye, a deep breath. Nothing he likes better than being called out on his bullshit. He makes a liquid movement with his shoulders, accepting the point. But then he shudders and for a second he looks at Paul with eyes so dark and full of fear that Paul has to look away.</p><p>"It was the worst thing I could..." He stares at his hands. "But you knew what it meant."</p><p>He says it as a statement, but there's a plea in his voice all the same. Wanting Paul to say yes, wanting him to say it's okay, to let him off.</p><p>Paul nods, slow and tired. He knew what it meant, every layer of it through and through and through. Knew that writing it was different to putting it out there, and John had done that too. That meant something different.</p><p>But he's tired. He's sick, and tired. And it feels so long ago. He knows it's wrong for John to ask for forgiveness and half pretend he didn't do anything wrong at the same time. But forgiving John has always been so easy, much easier than not. And he doesn't want to think about how much it hurt, doesn't want to admit it, or to hurt John by telling him.</p><p>"It doesn't matter."</p><p>It doesn't matter any more. Nothing does.</p><p>John looks at him. And after a second shakes his head very slightly, meaning it can matter, meaning Paul doesn't have to let him off this time.</p><p>"I had to do something so terrible it would mean you never wanted me back. I had to have something I could point to, as the reason, that you would never want me again. It couldn't just be me, you see?"</p><p>He sounds young again, he's looking at the floor. Paul looks at the ceiling. He breathes around the pain of it.</p><p>They sit. They're still again. They let it all be.</p><p>"I liked <em>Jealous Guy</em> better," Paul says eventually, moving them forward. He's rewarded with a smile that means too many things at once.</p><p>"That was for you. And <em>Sleep</em> was more for me, it was about me. But they were both, they weren't- they were about the pain of it, you know? Losing you, us. They were like two different ways of saying the same thing."</p><p>Paul feels that.</p><p>"Like us," he says.</p><p>John looks at him.</p><p>"Two different ways of saying the same thing."</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Downstairs again, they move beyond drunkenness and come out the other side, neither sober nor drunk. They are beyond tired and will never sleep again. They are worn and grubby and beloved of the earth.</p><p>The sun is coming up. Everything is pale and half lit.</p><p>John makes them a cup of tea and when Paul takes his he says, "Thanks, love."</p><p>John sits next to him on the sofa, and they watch the light creeping in.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Eventually they wind their way to bed.</p><p>They peel off layers and sleep in t-shirts and underwear.</p><p>There's a half second where Paul might question John being in his room when the spare room is just down the corridor. But they ignore it and let it pass.</p><p>They wrap warmly into each other. A habit from back when the bed was a single. A habit from when the hotels were cold. A habit from when they had nothing else to hold onto. A habit they left behind way too long ago.</p><p>Paul stinks of sweat and tears and booze. Weed. John breathes him in deeply until Paul huffs and shoves at him to get more comfortable. John rearranges them, pulls Paul close as he dares, and follows him down into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>💕 💕 Huge thanks to everyone<br/>who's reading and enjoying. 💕 💕</p><p>You can find me on tumblr at: <a href="https://zilabee.tumblr.com/">zilabee</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Paul wakes with his face buried in John's armpit, and for a second he doesn't know where they are, what city.  Mal or Brian will knock any moment, telling them what's on, ordering them into action.  He moans.  He tries to stretch and his fingers won't move, and the pain comes back, and he remembers instantly where he is, who he is, and that he couldn't play a fucking concert now if they paid him the world.  </p><p>He lies still and lets the pain in his hands and the pain in his head fight each other down.</p><p>He can hear John's heartbeat.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>They're hungover, and it makes it easy to be gentle with each other.  </p><p>John changes Paul's bandages and then makes them cheese on toast.  As he dishes it up he hums a few notes of a tune he only heard yesterday.  He looks round guiltily to see if Paul noticed, and Paul glances at him and half smiles.  </p><p>A swan is gliding, across the ocean.  John puts the kettle on.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>The day moves slowly, but then, they slept through most of it so it doesn't have far to go.</p><p>They watch a cowboy film on the BBC.  No adverts all the way through it.  John can't get over it.  The hero's pompous and boring and they take the mick, making each other laugh easily as they ever did.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>John needs something to do with his hands, and something to do with his thoughts, so he makes bread.  </p><p>It's a good day.  And if there's anything John is good at, it's ruining good things.  Ruins everything he touches.  He works his hands into the bread, searching for proof that that isn't true.  </p><p>Paul sits at the table and watches him.  They chat about nothing, people they've seen recently, people they haven't.  They are pretend normal people in a pretend normal world.</p><p>The kitchen walls are covered with children's drawings.  John stares at them as he kneads.  Creatures mostly, with spindly legs and huge eyes.  Others are pure scribble from an even younger hand.  </p><p>"You can see that Stella is still exploring the freeform wax period of her work," Paul says, in foppish posh.  "While Mary, she's entering a phase of deregulated cultural modernity."</p><p>John wants to join in, wants to fall in alongside him, in intellectual pseudo french, wants to make Paul laugh, and sit with him and see him smile.</p><p>"They're good," is all he says, his voice low.  He touches the corner of one of the pictures.  It's Paul, probably.  With some sort of deer next to him.  Horse maybe. </p><p>
  <em>They'll hate you.</em>
</p><p>He can't say it, and he won't.  It's too cruel, even for him.</p><p>
  <em>They'll know you didn't love them.  </em>
</p><p>He feels his throat closing and he hangs his head.  He shakes it off, but when he turns around Paul's looking at him.  Steady.  Daring him to say it out loud.  </p><p>
  <em>They'll never be happy ever again.</em>
</p><p>John looks away.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>Paul takes Martha outside to kick a ball.  To get away from John.  </p><p>It's not that late, but the sun's fading already, the earth's turning.  It's calm and still after the storm last night, and it smells like autumn for the first time.  Some of the trees are already starting to turn.  </p><p>Paul wants to lie down and sink into the earth.</p><p>John's hidden his painkillers and is only doling them out one at a time.  Paul likes the absurdity of it.  </p><p>He's hiding pot from John and letting him keep control of high strength painkillers.</p><p>John's hiding painkillers from Paul when he knows Paul has little bags of all kind of things that'll do the job better.  </p><p>He leans on the fence, and watches the clouds.   </p><p>It'll be different than it was for him and John.  The girls are still young.  Mary and Stella won't... they might not even remember him.  He breathes slowly.  It's not the same.  It's okay.</p><p>He kicks his feet in the dirt and watches a buzzard hunting over the fields.  </p><p>Martha barks for him to kick the ball again, and he obliges.  </p><p>Heather will be twelve soon.  Same age as Mike.  Not a little girl any more.  She's already changing, growing up.  She still wants to play like a little kid but then she remembers herself and gets self conscious about being too silly.  </p><p>Paul's heart burns and his hands ache and he pushes himself away from thoughts that go nowhere.</p><p>He wishes he still smoked.  </p><p>When he hears the car engine he feels tired, spent.  Not now, not yet.  </p><p>Like John said, the press were bound to get here eventually, but not now.  </p><p>He takes a deep breath, and hears Brian's voice, "It'll only be ten minutes, Paul, just answer a few questions and hand them a smile.  Do it for me won't you?"</p><p>Paul doesn't want to think about Brian.  </p><p>The press will ask their questions, and Paul will pretend everything's fine.  But John will be there, next to him, pretending too.  </p><p>The car pulls up at the front of the house.  By the time he gets inside John is already opening the door.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>Richie and George have shared a car from the airport.  </p><p>Paul stares at them.</p><p>George pushes his way in and instantly wraps around him as tight as possible.  </p><p>Paul tries to pull away.</p><p>"Fuck off, Paul," George mutters into his shoulder and doesn't let go.</p><p>"Come on," Richie says after a minute.  "Learn to share, George."</p><p>And Paul gets passed from one to the other.</p><p>"Hello stranger," Richie says quietly, hugging so tight it might bruise.</p><p>When he's finally released Paul looks around for John, who has slipped away to the kitchen.  </p><p>John's been on edge all day. The kind of edge that means he's done something stupid.  And this is definitely it.  </p><p>Paul glares at them both as they bring their bags in.  He wants to throw them straight back out again.  John had no right telling them.  </p><p>"Come to visit the freak show?" he asks quietly.  "Used to be you all hated meeting the cripples, left it to me to find the right thing to say, but now you're all into it, are you?  House calls and everything."</p><p>"Nice to see you, too, Paul," Richie says gently. </p><p>George just shrugs.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>Paul glares at John, and John glares back.</p><p>John plays it 'they're here now, why bother going on about it'.  </p><p>He plays it 'can't hate me for being a fuck up when you knew that going in'.  </p><p>He plays it 'you told me you were going to kill yourself and I panicked'.</p><p>Paul's relieved that it isn't the press.  Although it might as well be, no way to keep this quiet now.  Two Beatles is bad enough, but four Beatles will be a siren call to every journalist in the country.  Already the airports will be gossiping.  </p><p>George leans against the wall and watches the silent exchange between Paul and John with his jaw clenched.  </p><p>"Paul," Richie says softly, after a moment.  "John was worried, that's all."</p><p>George huffs.  "Off his head, more like.  He didn't even tell me what was going on, I was treated to five minutes of ranting and raving.  Yelling, you know, 'where are you, why aren't you here?'  I hung up on him twice.  Then Richie called, and said he was crying and that you were... well, that we should come."</p><p>John goes back to his cooking.  </p><p>Richie looks at Paul's hands, then up to his eyes.  Paul can see he's being careful and that's almost too much for him right there.</p><p>"He said it was bad." </p><p>Paul looks down and manages a half nod.  Yes.  It's bad.  He wants to laugh.  When he looks up George has tears in his eyes, and that's too fucking much, and Paul leaves and goes to bed.  He didn't ask them here.  He doesn't want it.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>John realises he sounds like Linda.  The clipped quiet way he tells them what he knows.  The bite in his tone, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous words, trying not to hear them even as he's the one saying it.  He replicates everything she said on the phone.  Even the unsaid parts: you have to help him because I don't know how, you have to fix him.  </p><p>He finishes making his bread.  He concentrates on it.</p><p>"We wasted all that time," Richie says quietly and John clenches his jaw and doesn't let himself feel it.</p><p>"How long have you been here?" George asks.  "Linda left you <em>alone</em> with him?"</p><p>John bristles instantly.  Why wouldn't she leave him alone with him?  Paul's as much his as he is Linda's.  In the next breath he remembers standing over him in the rain, screaming in his face, and thinks it's a fair point.  </p><p>"A few days."</p><p>Barely that, a day and a half before he had to send for help.  He rang them last night, which was only this morning.  Paul hiding in his study and John terrified that nothing he could say would be enough.  He puts the bread in the fridge to prove overnight.  He suddenly has nothing to do with his hands.  He wants a smoke.  </p><p>He starts making another loaf.</p><p>"You should have told us," George says.  </p><p>"I did tell you."  </p><p>"Soon as you got here."</p><p>"It doesn't matter, George," Richie says before John can snap back at him.  "John, it's going to be okay."</p><p>John laughs at that.  A terrible pathetic noise.  </p><p>"I threw things at him."  </p><p>He laughs again, and Richie's behind him, a hand on his back, and John puts his face in his hands and tries to pull himself together.  </p><p>"He's going to kill himself."  </p><p>A betrayal.  Not a betrayal.  He promised not to tell Linda, that's all he promised.  </p><p>"No, he's not," George says firmly, and John leans into that all the way.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>Paul's in bed, but he doesn't sleep.  He lies still instead, and practises not thinking or feeling.  </p><p>But he can't do it, can't get comfortable or quiet.  He hates them being there in his house, like insects making him itch.</p><p>All sorts of things making him itch.  </p><p>Hours pass.</p><p>He picks his way downstairs, trying to sneak out, but George catches him at the back door.  George doesn't say anything, just follows him out, and Paul finds he doesn't mind a partner in crime, he could use his hands.    </p><p>They go to the greenhouse and find his stash hidden in the corner under several sacks of manure.  </p><p>"Christ, did you think John was going to bring in sniffer dogs?"</p><p>Paul smiles, he'd been panicking, not thinking much of anything.  Furious, but righteous.  </p><p>George ignores the packets of boiled sweets that Paul was after.  He rolls, and Paul watches his fingers, nimble and practised.  Beautiful.  </p><p>Paul can't grip something so small as a joint, he has to use both hands, fingers balanced together.  He sees George watching him, pained, and he ignores it, and George doesn't say anything.</p><p>He hands it back, and stretches his hands out in front of him, he can already feel the pain ease in his palms for the first time in days.</p><p>They smoke.  </p><p>"I want to say horrible things to you," Paul says after a while, and laughter bubbles up out of him.  </p><p>George laughs too, nods.  "It hit me a month or two back, that if I didn't call you guys up I was going to have to be polite to everyone for the rest of my life."</p><p>Paul snorts with laughter.  "Fuck that."</p><p>"Fuck everything."</p><p>They take their time.  They're sitting out in the backyard, waiting to get called in for tea.  </p><p>George stops passing the joint to Paul and holds it up to his mouth instead.  Paul lets him.  It's easier.</p><p>"John's clean," Paul says.  He says it several times.  He's trying to make sure George sees how important it is.</p><p>"I know.  Feels like seeing him again, doesn't it?  New, I mean, or old.  Old John.  Like himself him."</p><p>Paul nods.  He gestures at the manure, where George has re-hidden their supply.  "Don't tell him."</p><p>"Shitting hell, Paul.  I'm not going to fucking tell him, am I?  You're not the only one who loves him, you know."</p><p>Paul sighs.  He was only saying.</p><p>...</p><p>At the back door George neatens Paul's hair, and Paul brushes dirt off George's shirt.  They stand up straight.  Tidied up.  This way John will certainly never know what they've been doing.</p><p>George opens the door, and John's voice filters in from the kitchen.</p><p>"I'm not going back."</p><p>"You mean she's going to move over here?"  Richie asks, surprised but pleased.  </p><p>John's reply is lost as someone bangs a cupboard door, sound of pots on the stove being moved about.  </p><p>"What do you mean?"  </p><p>"What I said.  It's over."</p><p>"I'm sure it's not as-"  </p><p>"It fucking is if I say it is."</p><p>Paul and George look at each other.  They know they should go in and make a noise, announce themselves.  Neither of them move.</p><p>"She was pleased," John says.  </p><p>George's eyes change to hard anger in an instant, and he clenches his jaw.  He squeezes Paul's arm tight, like he's going to pull him out of the way of the pain of it.  </p><p>"John-"</p><p>"No.  I told her about Paul, and she-"  He pauses, and his voice is softer when he goes on.  "I couldn't breathe, I thought I was dying, and she said the right things, 'oh dear, oh dear', but she was...  she said the press would want comments and we should decide what to say.  We were meant to be doing some interview and she thought I still would, you know, sit there and be the all-important John Lennon while Paul was...  She didn't get it.  When I booked the plane, she kept asking me why it mattered, 'there's no need to get upset'.  Like I could fucking-"  </p><p>As he talks there are sounds of him cooking, moving around the kitchen.  He pauses to fill a pan with water.  </p><p>"I'm not going back.  It's over.  There are other things too."  There's another long pause while he does whatever he's doing.  "But she's okay, you know?  It doesn't mean...  She's okay.  It's just that she's okay over there, and I'm okay over here."</p><p>They don't hear Ringo's murmured reply.  </p><p>George looks at Paul to see how he took it, but Paul doesn't know how he took it.  </p><p>They go in and make a noise taking off their shoes.  </p><p>They all eat together, around the table.  </p><p>There's a thing John would sometimes say in interviews.  How Paul's dad wanted him to do one thing, but in the end Paul picked John.  He always sounded kind of surprised by it.  Kind of proud.  Paul never quite got it before.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>It's two days before the press arrive.  </p><p>Richie comes in the front door and pushes the bolt across.  "Vans," is all he says, and John nods.  They've all been waiting.</p><p>It's early afternoon and Paul's still in bed.  John sits next to him.  "Press are here."</p><p>Paul barely reacts.  They've all been waiting.</p><p>"Are we going to tell them?"  John asks, stroking Paul's bandages.  </p><p>Paul's biting his lip, he looks tired and scruffy. He gives a small shake of the head.</p><p>"I want Linda to be here when they find out."</p><p>John nods at that, and feels relieved.  He doesn't want to tell them, they don't deserve to know. It's his business.  His and Paul's.  People don't deserve to know things about Paul.  </p><p>There's something else there too.  A slight shame.  Neither of them really want to admit what's happened.  They were untouchable for so long.  Unstoppable.  He knows people think that bubble burst a long time ago, but it didn't.  Not really.  They were still there, and the moment they wanted to they could have clicked their fingers and had it back.  This is different.  This is proof that they're ordinary after all.  Mortal.  Stoppable.  Neither of them like it.  </p><p>His leg is jiggling and Paul puts one hand on it to calm him. </p><p>"Don't say it," Paul says.  "You know, all that stuff..."</p><p>What he'd promised to tell them.  </p><p>John clasps a hand to his wounded heart and goes with a wild irish accent, "Ah Paul, you want me to deny my heart?  I can't my darling, I shan't!"</p><p>Paul laughs, despite every reason he has not to, and John feels so tender it hurts.</p><p>George and Richie are waiting at the bottom of the stairs.</p><p>"So, what are we telling them?"</p><p>"To fuck off our land," John declares, heading straight for the door.  No fear, that's the only way to do it.</p><p>They walk down to the gate, taking their time.  The press haven't come through it, not strictly on their land then.  Doesn't matter.  They can still fuck off.  Bulbs flash their whole way there.</p><p>It's not too bad.  Two vans, a reporter and photographer each.  The three beatles lean against the gate, letting them get their shots.</p><p>One of the reporters comes forward, "So, are you going to tell us why you're here?"</p><p>"We're visiting Paul, aren't we?" Ringo says in a drawl.  "What are you doing here?"</p><p>The reporter smiles at him.  "Where is Paul?"</p><p>"He's taken the dog out, should be back any time," John says easily.  </p><p>"Are you getting back together?" the other reporter asks.</p><p>"Well we are together," George says, "We're all here aren't we?"</p><p>"But are you recording?" </p><p>"Like we said, we're just visiting our Paul."</p><p>"Is it true she's left him?"</p><p>George glances to his left, Ringo to his right, John stares straight at the guy and doesn't blink.  "Don't be ridiculous."</p><p>"Because we're told Mrs McCartney boarded a plane for Spain a few days ago, and then we find out the three of you are here and we wondered if there might be difficulties in the marriage."</p><p>"Well if there were it would be none of your business, would it now?"</p><p>That's as good as a confirmation for a reporter, and after that it's easy.  They deny Paul's been having an affair and deny that Linda found out about it, took the girls and left.  They deny everything, and the press writes itself a nice little story without worrying about facts.</p><p>. . . </p><p>Back in Paul's room he brushes Paul's hair out of his eyes, without caring that it's not really in his eyes.  </p><p>"Is it okay?"</p><p>John nods.  "Linda's left you.  Marriage on the rocks.  We're here supporting you like the good friends we are."</p><p>"Ah."    </p><p>"Do you want me to ring her?" Richie asks, standing in the doorway.</p><p>"No, I'll tell her when she calls.  She's with Mickey, press won't get within twenty miles of that place. Why are we breaking up, just out of curiosity, you know?"</p><p>"You slept with someone else," George says, coming to sit on the bed with them.  </p><p>"Did I?"</p><p>"Probably," George says.  "You know what you're like."  </p><p>"I mean, we denied it very prettily," John adds.  "'He's a good boy, our Paul, he never would officer...' but might be we protested a little too much."</p><p>"Who am I sleeping with, did they say?"</p><p>John shrugs.  "Who did you last see?"</p><p>"I haven't seen anyone for weeks."</p><p>"Ah, well not to worry.  We'll buy the paper tomorrow and find out.  Send flowers."</p><p>That's an old joke, they were never sure if you were meant to send flowers to the girls you were rumoured to be shagging or just the ones you knew about.</p><p>"Got to be something nice, if you're leaving your wife for her," George says, thoughtfully.  "None of your chrysanthemum nonsense."</p><p>"Roses," Ringo says firmly.  "Can't go wrong with a rose."</p><p>George pulls a face.  "Carnations have more light."</p><p>John swings his feet up on the bed, and leans against the headboard.  Paul stays lying at his side. </p><p>"It'll keep them occupied for a bit.  But they'll be asking around now," John says carefully.  </p><p>"I know," Paul says, "It's fine."  His eyes fall closed, not wanting to think about it.</p><p>"Want a cuppa?" George asks, brushing John's arm as he gets up.  John nods.  Richie sits on the floor, back against the bed, and takes a pack of cards out of his pocket.  He deals patience on the carpet.  </p><p>John listens to George chatting to the dog downstairs.  Paul slips into a gentle sleep beside him.  </p><p>John closes his eyes.  He'd forgotten this.  How nice it is, just having everyone in the same place.  All his pieces back together.  </p><p>He thinks about all the drugs, and all the therapy, all the different ways he's tried to find to live without Paul.  Thinks about how living with Paul feels so much easier than any of them.</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The days pass.</p><p>When he gets out of bed he has to sit with them, eat with them, talk to them, watch tv. It makes him tired. So he stays in bed.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>They come and sit with him. It makes him feel like an invalid. It makes him feel cared for. He's uncomfortable with both.</p><p>Sometimes he wakes up and George is asleep on the other side of the bed. Or Richie's sitting by the window, reading. Usually they're both there, talking to each other to cover his silences. Making each other laugh. Asking him to pretend everything's okay.</p><p>They ask him about Linda and the girls every day. Two or three times a day. They ask after Mike and his dad, what they've been up to, how they're doing.</p><p>They hum and whistle, like nails on a blackboard.</p><p>He doesn't hate them.</p><p>He doesn't talk to them either.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John looks in on him and delivers painkillers every few hours. He asks if Paul needs anything else, and believes him when he says no. Asks him to come downstairs, and pretends not to be angry when he says no.</p><p>Things are... tender between them. But not painful. So many things they've said to each other in the past few days, good and bad. It all sits between them now. Some of it's hard and so heavy they'll never move it. But they've also cut paths around it, made some space. Paul thinks of it like a project they're building together. Small bridges. Ways forward. They feel for each other gently. Small glances, murmured words. Green vines, reaching out, growing between them again.</p><p>It's new and they're both afraid to put much weight on it.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul asks Richie to help him wash. Something he couldn't ever ask the others who he's known longer, known better. Just a flannel for his armpits he says, but Rich washes more of him that that. He's had his share of sponge baths in the past, he makes it easy.</p><p>Paul's grateful, and as payment Richie persuades him to come downstairs for tea.</p><p>"They love you, you know?" he says, as he helps Paul into a jumper. "I know they're total shitheads about it, but they love you more than anything. They never stopped."</p><p>Paul gives a small huff. He knows. Part of him knows.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John wakes up with a ball of worry in the pit of his stomach. He flicks on a light and looks at the clock. Seven am. They only came to bed at five. Over the week that George and Rich have been here, they've all slipped naturally into their old rhythms; bed at four or five in the morning, up around noon.</p><p>He pulls on a jumper and pads down the corridor. Opens Paul's door just a fraction. The bed's empty.</p><p>John checks the bathroom, empty.</p><p>He'll be in the kitchen. Or in the garden, looking at the stars. More times than he can count he's lost Paul somewhere and found him looking at the bloody stars.</p><p>He goes downstairs. Not in the kitchen. Not in the garden.</p><p>John knows he shouldn't panic. Stupid to panic.</p><p>He's about to go upstairs and tell Richie not to panic when he hears movement, a sigh, the scrape of a chair.</p><p>"John, love, is that you?" Paul calls softly, and then John notices the door in the hallway, which has been closed ever since he got here, is ajar. Stairs down to the cellar.</p><p>Paul's studio.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John looks soft with sleep as he comes down. Bare feet and no glasses.</p><p>Paul keeps stabbing at keys on the typewriter. Creating the poor shell of a thing he's making. Stupid. Small. Broken. Ugly thing. Just like him.</p><p>"You okay?" John asks carefully.</p><p>Anyone else and Paul would nod politely, or let it pass. But tonight's been hard and for John he just shakes his head and coughs out a half laugh of ridicule. Okay is a foreign world. Then he waves a hand of forgiveness for such a stupid bloody question.</p><p>He hits three keys at once and the hammers jam. It happens every fourth letter or so. He swears deep and low and shoves the thing in frustration, then pushes at his hair to get out of his face. He's shaking. He's filled with edges. He's rotted and sick. Everything he's doing is making it worse.</p><p>Paul sees when John notices the wreckage on the floor, sees his heart break just a little bit when he realises what it is.</p><p>He remembers the noise more than anything as he smashed his hofner into the floor, knowing what he'd done in a split second would last forever, couldn't be undone, doing it again and again. It happened weeks ago. It feels far away. It's horrible. It's fine. It's what it is.</p><p>"What are you doing?" John asks softly, and Paul knows what he's really saying. Why are you <em>here</em>? No point you being here. No place for you. The place he always belonged, where he was most himself.</p><p>"Couldn't sleep. I was looking for..." He touches the cassette on the desk. "But then I..."</p><p>He chews his lip and waits for words to explain it. I was falling apart, embarrassing myself, sinking.</p><p>He can't explain it so he shakes it off. He reaches into the typewriter and frees the bars, flicking them back into place. He stabs a key to move the carriage backwards and x's over his mistake. Most of the page is x's.</p><p>John comes over and picks up the cassette.</p><p>He hasn't got his glasses on. He squints and holds it right up close to try and read the faded pencil.</p><p>"It's This One," Paul says without looking at him. "It's rough, but I don't have it written down anywhere so..." very casual, "you can keep it if you want."</p><p>Paul doesn't look up but he can feel John smiling. It's bad enough giving him the thing without him smiling.</p><p>John slips the cassette into his pocket and sinks into the other chair, legs crossed on the desk in front of him. He tilts his head, looking at Paul.</p><p>Paul looks at the page and sighs, he bites hard on his lip until it masks some of the pain in his fingers.</p><p>"I thought if I wrote it down it would stop..." He gestures. Stop strangling him. Stop itching inside him and winding around him. "But it's..." He shoves at the stupid fucking typewriter again, making it jangle.</p><p>John's looking at him, more puzzled now. "It's a song? Something new?" he asks, a touch of surprise and confusion.</p><p>Paul hangs his head. "I don't know how it goes. I can't... get it out."</p><p>He can't make it real. It's just an idea of something, but it isn't how it'll really sound, there's always the echo inside and then you make it and shape it and hold it in your hands and it's different. At the moment it's only a weak little shadow of a song. Stillborn.</p><p>John's looking at him.</p><p>Paul's breath shakes, and he's tired.</p><p>"I haven't written anything new for nearly a year," John says softly. And Paul hears many things in him. Humiliation. Grief. Jealousy. Love.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>John stares.</p><p>Paul's full of pain, broken and terrified. He's half way dead. And there's still music swelling up out of him. So fucking easy.</p><p>John hates him. He remembers how it feels to hate him.</p><p>John loves him. So much it's tearing out of him, pulling him across the room to pick up a guitar.</p><p>Paul watches him, blank.</p><p>John sits on the rug, and holds the thing. It feels heavy and stupid. His hands hurt. It's left handed and that's good, makes it easier for it to be so hard.</p><p>He strums, tunes a string or two. Getting used to the idea of it, trying to fight away the pain washing through him.</p><p>"Tell me. Sing it."</p><p>Paul realises what he's offering, and he twists away from it, mentally and physically. His face shows sadness and fear without filter. But John waits, and after a while Paul comes back to himself. Takes a hard breath. He hums a little bit, then sings just a few words.</p><p>He has a special lilt when a song's new, plenty of room for it to grow and change, not too solid. John breathes it in.</p><p>He strums a chord, adds another, finding them a base to work from.</p><p>Paul nods encouragingly. He hums, and John plays around it. Ages since he played upside down. Fingers unsure what they're doing... but otherwise it's easy. It sounds almost normal. Like nothing's changed; like the universe doesn't know how broken it is.</p><p>Paul slips down from his chair and joins John on the floor. Sits opposite him, their knees touch. He's shaking gently.</p><p>Paul sings it again, and John plays it again. Paul presses gently on John's leg to change it, move it up and around, and it's better.</p><p>John's voice joins Paul's without thinking, and they both half stumble at the sound of it again after all this time.</p><p>They catch each others eyes.</p><p>Paul hates him. John sees it, and he understands. He'd hate him the other way round. Hates him this way round. They're a stupid mess. But the music's still there.</p><p>"It needs to be... you know," Paul says, and half gestures the feeling he means. He mimics the riff from a song John hasn't heard in twenty years, and he knows the sound.</p><p>John plays it rounder. Pushes the tempo a little and adds notes to the end. Paul changes the lyric to fit, and it's better straight away.</p><p>They glance at each other and then away again. Tears in John's eyes.</p><p>They're young again. Skipping school. Finding out who they are and what they can do.</p><p>Paul puts a couple of lines together for a middle eight. John plays a little fiddly something they might put in somewhere.</p><p>They had to learn from scratch the first time, how to write, how to fit together, how to pull music from the air and into the song. It was so fucking easy back then.</p><p>And it's easy now. Despite the hollowness where Paul's music ought to be. Despite everything between them. They're good at this, they always have been. There's nobody could touch them. John feels the twist of fear inside him untangling. Breathes relief and wonder that this thing between them is still there. Still undeniable. After everything he's done.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Paul's in agony and he feels better than he has in weeks.</p><p>George and Richie join them at some point, hours later, the song mostly shaped by then. George adds bass, keeping it simple, but with a movement to it that Paul loves. Rich listens for a few lines, then comes in, and immediately finds the edges and makes it whole. Paul catches John's eye and they shake their heads. Ridiculous. George just grins.</p><p>They play with harmonies, they imagine orchestras, they do george martin impressions. For split seconds it's just the four of them, back of a club, waiting for a show, kicking about.</p><p>Paul hates them.</p><p>He hates them so much it fills him with a kind of peace.</p><p>Isn't that the aim of meditation, simplicity of mind? Maybe he gets it.</p><p>He rocks back and forth as he sings, arms hugged around him to hide from where his instrument should be. They sound good, the three of them, playing full out now. They don't need him. He shakes. He lets his voice drop out and just listens. Until John comes and sits next to him, pulls him back into the song.</p><p>He asks to record it, realising that if they don't he might never hear it again. That he won't be able to play it for Linda.</p><p>He starts the tape and they play it better again. John and George add backing vocals that give it depth in the middle, and leave it fraying at the edges a little. It's gentle and whole. Then, as they get to the very end of the last note, John suddenly shrieks and hollers and laughter explodes deep in Paul's throat, shaking him up, as he joins in.</p><p>It's a noise from the past. In the early days, whenever they'd written something a bit soft, a bit sweet, they would end them that way. When they were alone. When they were writing. A release from the embarrassment of it.</p><p>John grins at him, he smiles back, and for a second he feels something flicker to life in his chest that he thought was gone forever. It scares him. He clenches his jaw, and flicks the switch to stop the tape.</p><p>He stares at the floor until it's gone.</p><p>The others stand and stretch. They go in search of food.</p><p>Except Paul finds himself held back, wrapped tight in George's arms. He keeps him there for a long time and Paul lets that happen. He hugs him back a little.</p><p>"It's strange how much I love you," George says, before he lets him go. Then smiles at him wide and warm, hand reaching up to cup Paul's face, like that isn't an oddly terrible thing to say, as if there's anything Paul can say in response.</p><p>Paul finds he doesn't mind it though, it's just George. He shrugs.</p><p>George kisses his cheek before he moves away, and Paul looks at the floor, not sure what he's meant to think about that.</p><p>"He's going to start using again, you know."</p><p>George starts tidying round as he says it, moving mic stands, and picking up coffee cups.</p><p>He glances at Paul who hasn't moved, who can't do anything but stare at him, cold.</p><p>"The moment you top yourself. What else is he going to do?"</p><p>His voice is quiet so John won't hear upstairs. His tone is almost kind.</p><p>"And then a week or a month after that, he'll die, Paul. One way or another. He barely kept himself alive these last few years. If you... he'll die, and we'll have lost you both."</p><p>George stands and looks at him then. His eyes are soft, and he looks like it's killing him and Paul hopes it fucking is.</p><p>"Fuck you," Paul says, and walks past him to the stairs.</p><p>"I know."</p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Paul writes. </p><p>Now he's started, he doesn't stop. </p><p>For the next week it just pours out of him.  He stops eating and barely sleeps and John doesn't mind because he's writing, and that's better for him than anything else.</p><p>John sits with him, hour after hour, guitar in his hands, feeding off him. </p><p>Paul never needed him before, but now he's desperate with it.  It's a drug, and John can't get enough.  </p><p>He's the worst kind of bastard, enjoying that Paul's hurt.  He knows it and he doesn't care.  It fills him.</p><p>Paul won't let George help, it's just the two of them, and John loves that too.  Childish and small, but he loves it the same way he always did.  It's him Paul needs.  Nobody else.  </p><p>It's indescribable.  </p><p>John doesn't think he'll ever shake the feeling that whatever broke in Paul should have broken in him too.  It feels obscene that he can still play.  But Paul doesn't give him a chance to hesitate or pull away from it.  Paul needs him.  And John is never going to let Paul down ever again... or at least not here.  Not yet.  So he plays.  </p><p>Sometimes he knows he isn't good enough.  He can feel Paul's fingers aching with how much better it would be if he was playing it.  Sometimes John comes close to pushing the guitar into Paul's hands and telling him to do just that, to stop pretending that he can't, and just play the damn thing himself.</p><p>But he doesn't.  He sits and lets Paul seethe in silent frustration.  He sits and lets Paul yell and swear.  He sits and tries again.  And again.  Finding patience he's never known before.  It's patience born from a single overriding selfishness.  He needs Paul not to leave him, and this is the only way he knows to make him stay.  </p><p>He sits, and he plays, and eventually they find their way and it comes together all at once, something beautiful falling into place and everything opening up.  Same way it always did.  And then Paul looks at him, and it's like they were never apart.  </p><p>It's a drug he's never going to kick.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>He writes love songs.  He's the lowest John has ever seen another person, his music should be raw with anger and pain.  John wants to shake him and tell him to let it out, put it out there, let people see him scream.  But Paul writes love songs and storybook songs, imaginary people leading imaginary lives.  </p><p>And they're good.  Of course they are.  They're Paul.</p><p>He writes a soft gentle melody with an edge of pure heartbreak, about a girl he thought would stay forever.  He writes about a woman alone at the end of the world, going about her day as though nothing's changed.  A man walking by the love of his life without ever realising she was there.  Love tearing people apart... and sometimes piecing them back together.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>Paul speaks with Linda every day, and then he hands John the phone with a look, making it clear he objects to her checking in with John like he's a little child, not to be trusted.</p><p>John hears Paul tell her that the pain is less, tell her that he's eating properly, feeling better, that John is looking after him.  </p><p>John repeats each lie back to her when it's his turn; Paul's eyes on him, warm and grateful.</p><p>"You could come back," John says.  It surprises him every time.  "You should be here."  </p><p>You should be a part of this, we could do this together.  Inviting her in.  She refuses gently, it's good for him, she says, don't hurry it.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>The press find out and gather at the gate.  </p><p>They all sit at the kitchen table, waiting for Paul to decide what he wants to do.  </p><p>He looks at his bandages.  </p><p>"I'll have to go and see them.  They'll never leave otherwise."  </p><p>"You want us with you?"</p><p>"Of course we're going wi-"</p><p>"No."  Paul cuts George off.  He doesn't look at him.  "It'll look pathetic, y'know, all of you crowding round."</p><p>"I'm coming," John says firmly, challenging him to say no. </p><p>When Paul meets his eye it's obvious there's no point arguing.  He shrugs.  </p><p>George rolls his eyes, but doesn't say anything.  </p><p>. . . </p><p>The moment he's out of the door he knows it's a mistake.  For a terrible second he thinks he's going to cry.  There's a low hum from a crowd waiting for them at the end of the drive.  It makes him feel nauseous, travel sick almost, time sick.  </p><p>If John wasn't at his side he would turn back.  If John wasn't pressing firmly against his arm.  If he wasn't whispering curses on the entire journalistic profession, trying to make Paul laugh.  </p><p>"They're fucking animals, Paul, all of them.  You don't have to take any shit from the likes of them.  The scots are the worst of them, they're fucking all sorts of animals."  He tilts his head, pleased with himself because that got him a smile.  "Sheep obviously, most of them.  But I heard this lot have a thing for giraffes.  You know the zoos can't keep them out; they take their own step ladders. Fucking pervert bastards the lot of them."</p><p>He doesn't know what to do with his hands.  He stuffs them in his pockets.  Then out again.  He doesn't want to look self conscious.  He's beyond self conscious.  </p><p>"It's fine," John says.  "You'll be fine."</p><p>Paul nods instinctively, taking that calm reassurance and erecting it like scaffolding around himself.  </p><p>As they get closer the voices become more distinct, each louder than the last, trying to be heard, and Paul feels himself turning to stone.  </p><p>"Can you tell us how it happened?"<br/>
"How bad is it, Paul?"<br/>
"How many of your fingers are broken?"<br/>
"Have they been amputated?"<br/>
"Has Linda left you because of your accident?"<br/>
"Are you in pain?"<br/>
"Are you paralysed in both hands, or just one?"</p><p>Paul freezes, and a cold hard realisation hits that he can't do this after all.  He's not ready.  He's going to scream and yell and make a scene that they'll all write up, both pitying and cruel.  He crosses his arms in front of him, and only realises it puts his bandages on full show when the camera flashes double.</p><p>Then John's taking another step forward.  Just half a step.  Just enough that his arm slides in front of Paul's own.  </p><p>Paul feels his legs steady beneath him, he takes a long breath, forcing his heart rate to calm.  He remembers all the times he's done this before.  He opens his mouth without a clue what he's going to say.  "I, uh..."</p><p>"I've left Yoko."</p><p>Utter silence for a split second.  Heads turn as one and suddenly nobody is looking at Paul's hands.  </p><p>Cameras click again, and it seems to wake the reporters.  A wave of noise as they fire their new questions.  All attention on John.  Paul takes a deep breath and realises he's shaking.</p><p>"We're getting a divorce," John says.  "That's why I'm here.  She threw me out and I asked Paul if he'd put me up.  I didn't even know about his accident until I got here."  </p><p>The press can't believe their fucking luck.  </p><p>John tells them that no, he wasn't having an affair - and by the way neither was Paul.  Tells them Linda's just gone to get some sunshine and left Paul behind to look after him - that's why George and Ringo have joined them.  He tells them that he doesn't hate Yoko, there was no big falling out, but they're not together any more.  He missed England, missed Scotland too.  Mostly he missed his friends over here, and he shrugs towards Paul.  They ask him about his visa to the states, and he gives them a full five minutes of pure shit about being very close to winning the battle when he suddenly realised he didn't want it after all, that he'd send it back now if they offered it, America's too big, too self-important; England's his home, his roots. </p><p>When they turn back to Paul and ask again about the accident, John scoffs.  "Oh he'll be fine," he says.  "It's just taking a bit of getting used to.  But he can still sing and write, can't he?  He'll be fine."  </p><p>And then he brings it back to himself so easily, and Paul simply nods, gives a half smile.  The hand on John's back making it seem like he's supporting John, not the other way around.</p><p>John answers questions for a few more minutes, and then pulls Paul away, an arm around his shoulders, back towards the house.</p><p>. . . </p><p>Inside, Paul looks at him.  John leans against the wall and takes his boots off.  </p><p>"What's up, Macca?  Worried I stole your headlines?"</p><p>Paul doesn't need to thank him for that, for any of it, John knows how much it means.  </p><p>"Fucking hell, John."</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"You okay?"</p><p>He doesn't reply, and he doesn't look okay, he looks pale now they're back inside, and unsteady.  He slides down the wall to sit on the floor.</p><p>"Have you spoken to her, let her know what's coming?"</p><p>John nods, pushing his hair behind his ears.  He doesn't pretend to be offended that Paul thought he might not have told his wife he's divorcing her.  He's got form.</p><p>"We talked yesterday."  </p><p>He looks shell-shocked.  Paul sits himself down next to him.  The others are there, asking how it went.</p><p>"He told them he's leaving Yoko."</p><p>"Does she..?"</p><p>"Yeah, she knows."</p><p>"I think she's more relieved than anything," John says, softly, talking to his feet.  "I'll let her have it all, you know, I don't want it to be angry."  He's shaking slightly, because he's said it now, so angry or not, it's coming.  "She'll need them to think it was her idea, that's why I said it, about her throwing me out.  It would be hard otherwise."</p><p>He looks at Paul then, making sure he believes him.  And Paul does.  John had no reason to lie to them about who left who; every reason in the world to lie to the press.</p><p>"It'll be fine, John.  You'll see."  </p><p>John nods, pulling the words in close, scaffolding of his own.  </p><p> </p><p>- - - - - </p><p> </p><p>A few days later.  Six in the morning.  </p><p>Paul doesn't say anything, he just pulls back the covers, and slips in to the other side of the spare bed.  The sheets are cold.  John turns to look at him, blinking away sleep.  </p><p>"Something wrong?"  </p><p>Paul shakes his head.  </p><p>"Need me to come back down?"</p><p>Paul shakes his head.  </p><p>John had crawled off to bed hours ago, left him in the studio, prodding at his stupid little typewriter, trying to get the words out of his head.  </p><p>John looks at him now, clearly wondering if he's allowed to go back to sleep.  </p><p>Paul wants to let John sleep.  He wants to disappear.  He wants to give John space and stop asking him for things.  Whatever they have now, he's going to suffocate it tonight.  </p><p>He's doing it anyway, because he's selfish through and through.  He smiles a little despite himself.  Just like John, he thinks.</p><p>"Biggest bastards on earth," he says quietly, and John's eyebrows furrow for a second, because he's not sure where it's coming from.  But then he relaxes, reassured by whatever he sees in Paul's eyes.  </p><p>They lie for a minute.</p><p>Paul knows he should go to his own bed, go to sleep. He hasn't slept more than a few hours for days.  His head hurts. </p><p>He can hear George softly picking a ukulele in the room next door.  </p><p>"Linda'll be back soon," Paul says.  A few days, he thinks.  A few more days of John.  </p><p>John nods.  </p><p>"Are you... Have you thought about what you'll do?"</p><p>There's something in John's eyes at that, something in the set of his jaw, but it's gone in a second and Paul doesn't catch it.  </p><p>"Ah, well, I suppose I'll beg a room with Rich or George, you know till I find somewhere."</p><p>A sharp burn in Paul's stomach.  Course he'll go with them.  Loves them so easily.  Three of them together without him.  Happier without him.  </p><p>Fuck them. </p><p>Paul drops his head, and closes his eyes, hiding even though he knows John can hardly see him in the half light.  </p><p>"I don't want you to go."  He has to force the words out, and they sound small and cold.  </p><p>They've never asked each other for anything.  Not really.  Paul feels that right through.  He's breaking a rule, he thinks.  And if John wants to hurt him again, he's telling him how.  </p><p>"I thought-"</p><p>"I need you here.  For... a while, y'know.  I need..."  Paul sighs.  His teeth bite at the corner of his mouth, trying to stop him saying the thing he knows he shouldn't say.  But it's what he's come up with, and he's tired.  And he wants John to stay.  "If you go I'll-" </p><p>"I'll stay then," John says softly.</p><p>Paul glances up at him, and frowns.  "I don't just mean for a week, John.  I mean...  If I don't have you, or," he gestures down, through the bed, through the house, to the studio.  "If I don't have that, I don't know how..."  </p><p>"It's okay."</p><p>Paul shakes his head, it's not okay.  "If you go, I'll-"</p><p>"Said I'd stay, didn't I?"  John says more firmly, and when Paul looks up at him again he's looking back at him, jaw set. </p><p>Paul opens his mouth, but it's John that speaks again, pointedly interrupting, voice hard as granite now, eyes still soft and caring.  "I'll stay, Paul."  </p><p>Paul clenches his teeth in frustration.</p><p>
  <em>If you go I'll kill myself.</em>
</p><p>That's what he's decided.  The deal he's made.  </p><p>
  <em>If you stay, I won't.</em>
</p><p>He knows it isn't fair.  And it isn't kind.  It'll make John hate him.  But it's the only way he can see.  And he thinks he should say it, make it concrete between them somehow. </p><p>But John's looking at him.  He already knows.  And he's letting him off, giving him everything without making him say it.  The kindness of it floods him.  </p><p>He breathes carefully, refusing to cry.  </p><p>"I'm sorry," he says.  Sorry for thinking it, needing it.  Sorry because it's still true whether he says it or not.  </p><p>"It's okay."</p><p>"Six months," he says.</p><p>"Six months?"</p><p>He can feel John looking at him, studying him, eyes narrowed to focus.  He doesn't look back at him.  </p><p>"If you stay, then I-"  John doesn't want him to say it, so he cuts himself off, tilts his head.  "I know you can't stay forever, but I need to know for sure.  I thought six months.  If that's too long-"</p><p>"Why six months?"  </p><p>Paul shrugs.  Honestly it sounds like forever to him.  He can't imagine any longer.  In six months John will have been clean for over a year.  He'll be steadier.  George won't be able to blame him if...</p><p>"Just say you will."</p><p>"Don't be soft, Paul.  Of course I will.  However long you want me."</p><p>Oh.  Paul lets out a long breath.  </p><p>"I'm sorry."</p><p>"It's fine."</p><p>He shakes his head.  It's not fine.  John's clean and well, he should be out doing whatever he wants.  Working with people it's worth working with.  </p><p>Paul takes deep breaths, thinking about six months.  How long that is.  How short.  </p><p>"Paul?  You thought I was just going to go?  When Linda got back?"</p><p>Paul frowns at him, puzzled.  Of course he was going to go.  They've been waiting for Linda to get back, and then John was going to leave him again.  </p><p>"Where would I go, Paul?  With you here, like this?  Where else would I go?  I left... I left everything to be here, you prick."</p><p>John shoves uselessly at the blankets as he says it, hurt and frustrated.  The thick emotion in his voice makes Paul ache right through, and he hears a soft noise of pain from his own throat.  He hurts people without thinking.  </p><p>John loves him.  And he keeps forgetting.  </p><p>"I didn't mean..."  He reaches out, and his broken fingers brush over John's hand helplessly, then catch hold of his sleeve, as though they'll be able to hold him in place, keep him from disappearing.  "I know, John.  I know you did."</p><p>John's anger's gone as soon as it came.  He strokes over Paul's arm above the bandages, and squeezes very softly, very briefly.  Forgiveness, understanding.  They never mean to hurt each other, but they've always been careless.  </p><p>"It means everything."  Paul whispers it, the best he can do.  "That you came.  I don't know what I would have done."  He sighs, and wipes his eyes.  Crying in front of John is something he's having to get used to.  "I just, I didn't want to ask you for anything else, you know?"</p><p>John looks at him then, sighs and shakes his head.  "You don't have to ask, though, do you?  Isn't that the point of it, of us?"  </p><p>That was how it had always been.  They'd taken what they wanted from each other, not just musically, but emotionally.  Demanding support, no matter what.  Demanding the other's anger, laughter, help, time, everything.  Whenever they needed it.  But that was when they were equal, when they'd been a class above anyone else, in a world of their own.  Walking on air.  That was before.</p><p>John doesn't have to do that for him any more.  They're not the same any more.  </p><p>"For fuck's sake," John says, because Paul's not saying anything.  "What do you think I'm even going to do?  If you throw me out, what do you think I'll do?"</p><p>"You'd-"</p><p>"I haven't written anything in months, Paul.  And I haven't played like that in <em>years</em>.  Not like that, you know?  I didn't think-"  He sighs, and Paul sees his mouth twist, the way it does when he's worried he's showing himself a fool.  "Part of me didn't think I'd ever be able to play like that again.  I thought it was gone.  When you left me, I thought it was dead."  He runs his fingers through his hair, over his eyes.  "But when I'm with you, it's..."</p><p>"John-"</p><p>"You're not the only one that needs it, okay?"  His voice is gruff, he's not angry, but he's tired and frustrated.  </p><p>Paul meets John's glare, accepts it gently.  Accepts a lot of things.  Accepts that perhaps it can be like it was before, if that's what John wants.  Both needing each other, both taking without asking.</p><p>"Okay," he says.  </p><p>John relaxes a little.  "Okay."  </p><p>They breathe together.  Finding their balance.  </p><p>Paul's eyes close.  He presses deeper into his pillow.  John mirroring him across the bed.  </p><p>"There's a cottage," Paul says after a minute, not opening his eyes.  "Just down the lane.  It needs some work doing, you know, but it's nice.  We've just never done anything with it.  It's by the wood and there's a little garden.  So I thought, if..."</p><p>"I could stay there?"</p><p>Paul nods.  "Or here, but I thought you might rather..."</p><p>"I'd like that."</p><p>"It's only five minutes walk, so you know, you can come up all the time, whenever you want to.  For meals and everything.  I was thinking Julian could come and stay sometimes, Cyn even, anyone really."  </p><p>The last thing Paul wants is John going crazy in a house on his own.  Starting using again, with nobody there.  </p><p>"I've never done that, being on my own.  Standing on my own two feet, or whatever.  Maybe I'll even grow up a bit."</p><p>"Just a bit, mind." </p><p>"Small steps; massive acorns."</p><p>Paul smiles.  He worries about it, John being on his own.  But he wants so much to have him close, wants him to be there whenever he needs him.   Selfish.</p><p>"Have you asked your good lady wife what she thinks about it?" John asks quietly.  "When she asked me here I think there was an understanding that eventually I would be not here again."</p><p>"She won't mind," Paul says softly.  Not as much as she'd mind the alternative, he thinks.  And he knows she'll be glad not to have to deal with him alone.</p><p>"She threatened me, you know?" John says. "On the phone.  She said, uh, she said you..." his voice sinks until Paul can barely hear him, "That she thought you needed me."  He glances at Paul, knowing it's soft.  Paul looks away.  "But that if I hurt you again she'd rip me apart.  And she meant it, I knew that, I could tell she wasn't messing, you know?"  John smiles gently.  "I loved her for it," he says simply.  </p><p>Paul smiles, he loves her for it too.  </p><p>"I know I've been..."  A wave of John's hand tries to explain years of painful anger and cruel words.  "But she called me and," his mouth quirks as he realises what he's going to say and says it anyway, "she knew how much I love you."  </p><p>He shrugs away all the emotion, but Paul can tell how much it meant to him.  He knows that things are different now because of it.  </p><p>
  <em>how much I love you</em>
</p><p>They've loved each other for such a long time now, but it's still very new, John saying something like that to him.  Paul isn't drunk.  He's not touched a drop in days.  But he's very tired.  His bones ache.   John loves him.  His thoughts tumble together.</p><p>I love you too, he thinks he should say.  </p><p>"I told her you were like liver," he says.</p><p>John stares at him, and Paul smiles.  </p><p>"At the beginning, she'd always say 'I know he's your friend, <em>but</em>...' or she'd say 'you don't have to put up with that, you wouldn't put up with it if it was Mike', you know?  And I couldn't make her see why it was different with you.  And with the others.  It's not like other people.  It's not even like family, you know, we're allowed to...  And then sometimes, I think she thought, you know, that we were <em>queer</em>, or whatever."</p><p>John looks at him.  They both know that people think it around them sometimes, but they've never spoken about it.  </p><p>"Yoko thought it," John says.  "She wouldn't say so, but she always thought it.  A filthy little secret I was keeping from her."</p><p>Paul nods with a kind of shrug and avoids John's eye.  People don't understand.  </p><p>"And I had to explain to her it wasn't like that.  That it's not even like I really <em>could</em> be in love with you like that, it'd be like being in love with my feet, you know?  And it wouldn't make sense to hate you, because you'd still be there, you'd still be, you know..."</p><p>John waits, and makes Paul say it.  </p><p>"A bit of me."</p><p>"Your <em>liver</em>, though?"  John looks disgusted.  And deeply pleased.  </p><p>"I was very high," Paul says to excuse himself, and John snorts gently.  </p><p>"Seven levels high, and stupid as a goat," he sings.  A bastardisation of a snippet of a song they never wrote.  A reference nobody else in the world would know.  "You could have made me one of the important ones at least, a lung or stomach.  Something useful."</p><p>"The liver's useful."</p><p>"Is it?"</p><p>"Well, we've all got one."</p><p>"It's hardly the headline act, though, is it?  Of course I always thought of you as more of a gall bladder, full of gall you always were."</p><p>Paul smiles.  "Yeah, you can talk."</p><p>Linda had told him John was more an appendix, and that you could have your appendix out.  Paul had told her it wasn't like that, and he would grow back. </p><p>"It's sort of like what we used to say, isn't it?" John says, after a moment.  "Four parts of one whole.  I thought it was bollocks." </p><p><em>I don't believe in Beatles</em>, Paul thinks, feeling the gentle sorrow of it running through him again.  Feeling the freedom in it, too.  </p><p>"But it's not."  John says.  "I mean it is.  But it's not."</p><p>"Yeah." </p><p>It is, and it's not.  They're all still connected.  When they're together, they're something more than when they're apart.  They're joined together in ways they can't explain.  They've all felt it again over the last few days, like it or not.  </p><p>Paul thinks he isn't the only one that likes it.  And he never worked out what was so wrong with liking it.  He never worked out a lot of the things he did wrong back then.    </p><p>He closes his eyes, and pulls the covers up around him.  </p><p>"I never meant to hurt you," he says softly, before he can leave it unsaid forever.  "You know that, don't you?"</p><p>He glances up, and John smiles at him, then drops his eyes.  "Ah, we were bound to hurt each other, Paul.  We meant too much."</p><p>Maybe they did.  To each other.  To the world.</p><p>Maybe it wasn't all their fault.</p><p>And maybe it'll be easier this time, he thinks.</p><p>And maybe it won't. </p><p>They'll see. </p><p> </p><p>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank you so much for reading.<br/>I'm <a href="https://zilabee.tumblr.com/">zilabee</a> on tumblr if you want to see me there.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>May 1975</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Paul comes in without knocking, and calls hello.  </p><p>John comes down the stairs a few minutes later, paint on his hands.  He usually draws or paints in the mornings, up in the attic room where the light's good, then comes up to the house for lunch.  Sometimes though, Paul comes and interrupts him for elevenses.</p><p>Paul puts the envelope on the kitchen table.  John looks at it.  </p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"Papers."</p><p>"Ah."</p><p>John doesn't move towards them.  Paul knows he has no intention of ever signing any papers Paul ever puts in front of him.  Telling him that he wanted things sorted financially before he killed himself was not Paul's smartest move.  But then he'd been very drunk at the time.  </p><p>He smiles as John turns his back on the envelope, moving to the sink to wash his hands. </p><p>"I had the guys draw up something new."</p><p>John shrugs like he couldn't be less interested.  He turns the radio up.</p><p>Paul grins. </p><p>He leaves the envelope for whenever John's ready to face it.</p><p>They take cups of tea and scones into the garden and sit under the veranda.  It's not warm, but it's not cold, and every now and then summer peeks out from behind a cloud.</p><p>Paul cups his mug in both hands, and feels the warmth ease into his muscles.  So much better than they were.  He has a little feeling in his left hand, not much but enough that it feels more like a part of him again.  And the operation on his right has lessened the pain, given him a stronger grip with more movement in his thumb.  He still gets bad cramps occasionally, but otherwise they only really hurt in the mornings, or in the cold.  He's getting used to it.  If he doesn't think about it too much, it's fine.  And there's no point thinking about it. </p><p>They chat for a while about nothing.  </p><p>"Wait there a sec," John says, and he nips back into the cottage.  Comes back with his guitar, and his notebook.  </p><p>Paul looks at him, wondering what it is John thinks needs work.  They've got a couple of tunes knocking around at the moment.  Nothing like when they were first back together.  They wrote and wrote in those first few months, ended up with something like seventy songs - some of them not much, but a few of them pretty good.  Now they've settled into a more regular rhythm, spending one or two evenings a week here in the cottage or down in the studio, working on whatever comes to them.  </p><p>John flicks through his book to find the right page.  </p><p>"I've got something," he says, with his voice guarded against excitement or expectation.</p><p>John hasn't written anything himself in all the time he's been here.  Nothing that started from him.  </p><p>He'd say that he hasn't written anything at all, but that's nonsense, none of the songs they've come up with have been Paul's alone.  John's added lines and words that changed everything, and the music's more his than it is Paul's sometimes.  But Paul knows he doesn't think any of that counts.  </p><p>"Is it..?"  Paul half asks.</p><p>"Sod off," John replies.</p><p>Paul grins.  "You wrote a love song?"</p><p>"Sod off," John replies.</p><p>They haven't talked about it a lot.  John not writing.  But when they do Paul tells him he's overthinking it.  Trying to write something too big and meaningful and emotional.  'Just write a little song instead,' Paul kept saying.  'Write a love song.'  </p><p>John strums a few notes and then starts to sing.</p><p>"My life... take it.  It's yours... take it...  It is yours..."  He hums through a few bars there, which obviously don't have words yet, and when he comes back in, it's bigger, with a beat from the past, and his voice smiles.  "Been too long since we took the time, no-one's to blame, I know time flies, so quickly.  But when I see you darling, it's like we both are falling, in love again..."</p><p>Paul already knows it.  That's how it always feels when John plays him a new song.  Like it was already there, already his, in the world before him.  He has tears in his eyes immediately, and when it sinks a little into <em>Don't Worry Baby</em>, he feels his blood sway in time with it, and he smiles wide while John avoids his eye.  </p><p>John sings and hums his way through some of a middle, and the start of another verse, then peters out.  "I haven't got it all."</p><p>Paul tries not to say the wrong thing.  He worries that anything might be the wrong thing when you haven't written a song in over a year, so he settles on, "It's good."  </p><p>John shrugs like it's okay at best.  "Been hanging around you too long, they'll have me playing the local tea dances," he says with a flutter, but his eyes are proud of it all the same.  </p><p>He plucks a few more notes.  "Thought if you helped me with it, it might be the b-side to your swan song."</p><p>That's thrown away casually enough that Paul knows he's thought about it.  That he wrote it to match in some way.  Evening the scales, maybe.</p><p>John's been trying to get Paul back in a studio for a while now.  He's thought about it, but the idea of trying to make music in front of other people, standing there, useless, everyone pitying him.  He can't face it yet.  </p><p>Paul lets the comment go by.  </p><p>John's fingers carry on playing with notes, looking at the trees.  </p><p>Paul drinks his tea.  </p><p>"Do you think Brian Wilson will sue us?"</p><p>"It's not that similar."</p><p>Paul raises an eyebrow.</p><p>John lowers his own, and plays it again, changing it slightly.</p><p>Paul pulls John's notebook over to his side of the table.  Top of the page John's written 'another meaningful fart, from Paul McCartney's liver'.  Paul laughs, and sees John smile.  </p><p>He flicks through the book a little, to see if there's anything else new, since he last looked.  It's filling up with stories and cartoons.  A few good lines.  Some bits of lyrics here and there.  </p><p>Paul's postcard is taped inside the front cover, his heart still warms whenever he sees it there.   </p><p>
  <em>"I hope you're OK"</em>
</p><p>Paul strokes his fingertips over it.  He thinks it's the best thing he ever wrote.</p><p>x</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>💕 💕 Thank you ever so much to everyone<br/>who's been reading and enjoying this.<br/>Your comments have really meant a lot 💕<br/>x</p><p>(I wrote a tiny snippet of an addendum <a href="https://zilabee.tumblr.com/post/639300293152129024/this-is-a-little-addendum-to-the-wild-and-windy">over on tumblr</a>.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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